Over the years I have talked to a lot of people who were feeling upset or experiencing emotional pain. While their stories may be different, there seems to be a common thread.
Pain comes from resisting what is true.
-Wishing something didn’t happen.
-Wanting someone to be different.
-Fighting something that can no longer be fought.
-Expectations of people, experiences, or things that are not being met.
What is true cannot be changed. It is simply the truth. When you stay engaged with wanting it to be different, you get stuck in a cycle of feeling upset over and over again. This cycle of resistance can be detrimental to your health and well-being, keeping you mired in and controlled by the past.
It is no longer what happened that is making you suffer, but your continued resistance to it.
The solution is to simply accept what is. You don’t need to like it or approve of it, just stop fighting the facts. It happened. It’s over. It’s time to move on and stop letting it control you.
When you accept the truth you can heal, learn, grow, and move forward. You don’t have to stay stuck, marinating in the upset and over-reacting to things that trigger the pain.
You can be free.
Resisting what is true = pain
Accepting what is true = peace and freedom
Which will you choose?
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I’m so glad you posted this, Linda. The type of pain you describe is exactly what my husband is going through right now, and I believe he will find comfort and guidance in your post. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
I’m so grateful this can help. Light to your husband and his ability to shift this. It all starts with awareness. Then he can look at the consequences of staying in the cycle and letting it go. After that, it is a simple decision. All of his thinking about it will not change a thing. It only impacts his well-being (and maybe yours).
So timely for me to read. At this moment I see and understand the truth of what you are saying. Thank you.
It must be true then. I checked out your blog and really enjoyed it.
Here is another formula you can apply. In words, the difference (or gap) between the expectation of “how it should be” and the reality of “how it is”
is the magnitude of the pain.
EXPECTATION – REALITY = PAIN
now if it was turned around, and reality was more than we expected, it could be a measure of joy.
Blog on!
Great formula! Thanks for sharing it.
This sounds like Step 1 work. Step 1 is the step that we never, ever complete… Recently, I went back and did some Step 1 work around my husband’s catastrophic illness. The truth is, we are not in control of anything but ourselves and our location. Accepting that IS freeing.Thank you.
Ah yes. The serenity prayer. I forgot about that because I have only looked at that work briefly. It just goes to show that truth is all around us and expressed in many different ways.