Pain As A Teacher
Unfortunately and fortunately, pain is a prerequisite for growth.
The type of pain I’ll be discussing is more mental/emotional. For physical pain… I don’t know, take an ibuprofen and relax.
But in all 3 cases, it’s always temporary. When it’ll pass is usually unknown and depends on the person.
If you decide to hold onto it, it evolves into suffering, resentment, anger, and a whole cocktail of dark emotions that’s harder to erase. I mean… that’s the whole premise of the movie, The Grudge, right?
I love this quote by Warren Buffett:
The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken
From my observations, emotions tend to lead down a similar path.
If you can’t let go of a past pain caused by a certain person, circumstance, or thing – it festers into a false narrative.
And if you keep telling that false narrative over and over…
It becomes the story of your life.
To replace that story will require a massive amount of energy, time, focus, and intention.
So it’s better to let such pain go as soon as possible or else you’ll think that memory defines you. Which it doesn't.
If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past 2 years specifically (the hard way), it’s this:
Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.
And I’ve been through the pain gamut. Family, relationships, business, or a combination.
I’ve talked about it in previous newsletters, but you have full control over your attitude and how you respond.
When pain comes into your life, sometimes that’s completely out of your control. A family member dies, your partner breaks up with you, someone betrays you, etc.
How you handle that state of pain is 100% up to you.
Depending on how you handle it, it can turn out to be a beautiful learning experience… or one that zaps away your energy and power each day… eating away at your spirit and soul little by little.
Avoiding the latter is simple.
You have to accept the pain when it’s here. DO NOT ignore it and believe it’ll go away on its own.
It won’t. I learned that the hard way too.
If you choose to ignore it, you’re not allowing yourself to properly heal.
Time can only heal if you’re actually healing.
Ignoring is not healing. You’re just allowing the chain of that emotion to collect more momentum silently. And before you know it, there’s a boulder chained to your ankle, dragging behind you everywhere you go.
In The Art of Letting Go, the author says, “We often hold on to negative emotions and unpleasant memories because we dread the possibility that we’ll miss out on potential positive experiences associated with them.”
Possible. Potential.
In other words, you’re trying to force and bend reality in your favor. But you have no control over those possibilities or potential.
In my opinion, you’re depriving your heart, mind, and soul of newer possibilities and potentials.
To me, letting go is closing the door on that memory or emotion. And it doesn’t mean a newer door in the same thread won’t open in the future.
But don’t count on that happening. Save the $10 you’re thinking of paying the street corner “psychic”.
Closing The Door
Just imagine you have a door that won’t fully shut. It’s winter time right now, so every night it circulates cold air into your home.
You can deal with it like my aunt, and jam a bunch of towels at the bottom to plug the gap. (it doesn’t work as well as she’d like to think)
Or you can face reality and get a new door. One solution solves the actual problem, and the other prolongs it.
Recently, I found a metaphorical door that was still cracked open. I ignored it for years.
My way of coping with it back then was to distract myself with more work and focus on external goals.
From time to time, I still felt the effects lingering there. But I’m a meathead sometimes, so I ignored it.
And I would’ve continued to ignore it had I not been doing all this inner work for the past 4 months.
Now my gut was telling me to go fix the door for good. So I summoned up the courage to face that memory, knowing what was on the other side.
But when you replace a door, you have to open it first.
When the door swung open, all the pain I thought had gone away years ago, came flooding in.
It really didn’t hurt that much less than when the pain initially arrived in my life.
I thought I was pretty good at letting things go. Guess I was better at ignoring things.
But at least, it allowed me to learn these insights.
After all, Ray Dalio says Pain + Reflection = Growth.
Pain will never stop me from marching forward anyway, so I may as well learn from it.
I was really taken aback by the whole experience. I wanted to numb myself. Swallow some edibles and let my good friend THC shoulder these emotions.
But I had another thought.
I know this is temporary. I don’t know how long it’ll take. But if I could sit through this fire, and let myself heal properly this time…
What kind of person will I be at the end of it?
A storm is gonna run out of rain sooner or later. And that pain will cease to exist, transforming into another compartmentalized memory.
But at least, the strings of the experience that are tied to my soul and spirit will be snipped.
I don’t believe you need pain to learn these lessons. You can easily just learn from others’ mistakes like mine.
I’m just glad I made the pivot 4 months ago to focus on my internal world with little emphasis on the outer world. Because this could’ve been a lot worse.
Skills that I’ve been practicing like staying in the present moment as much as possible, emotional regulation, and focusing on a future self – they all came in clutch.
I’m not sure if they help accelerate the healing process. But they have definitely made it tolerable.
And I’ve been able to close not one, but two doors recently. Once the remaining pain from this latest instance lets itself out, that’ll be the end of it.
But I look forward to what’s on the other side, which is my ultimate goal now…
Peace.
We can talk more about that next week.
Week 77 P4P Updates
I have a few clients with fights lined up in the next 1-3 months. One is actually fighting this weekend.
I’m looking forward to it even though I know I’m gonna be anxious as hell the entire time.
But still doing my thing and churning out good work with them.
I admire these fighters and how they deal with pain. Just imagine spending your entire time and making the sacrifice to train for 6-8 weeks – in order to perform for 15-25 minutes or less.
And if you’re not the victor, that might feel like you wasted 6-8 weeks. Which isn’t true. Any work makes you better.
But it’s a painful thing and you just gotta hop back on the horse as soon as possible. Because there’s a new opponent on the horizon and if you want to make a career out of this sport, you can’t let old losses drag you down.
Accept and forget.
We’re up to 2,733 subscribers now across the clients. I have 2 more waiting in the wing to launch, so we’ll see what happens then.
But until then…
Trust the process, love the process.
And let’s fucking go Max!!
Kevin