Another confronting insight from my recent Ayahuasca ceremony was meeting the reality that pain is an inevitable part of the human experience.

I’ve known this…conceptually and experientially…but this depth of insight was a new kind of reckoning that asked me to face the small but still existing part of myself that was running from discomfort.

How have I been running from discomfort most recently? Too much reliance on others to help me process, too little self-accountability. Too much attachment to positive goals, too little presence with the challenges of the now.

Sneaky, clever, lingering bits of shadow, hiding behind my bright light…

Pain is an inevitable part of the human experience.

This was a sobering realization, and at the depth Aya offered it to me, the awareness was absent of victimhood. No one to feel sorry for. No sadness to feel. Only a strength to own, a courage to claim, and roots stretching farther than ever into the earth.

Pain is an inevitable part of the human experience.

This is relevant here…a wise quote, “Pain is mandatory, suffering is optional.”

Pain and suffering are often entangled… Rather than go into a philosophical litany on how to untangle these experiences, I’ll share a writing that I believe will be more experiential; a writing that you will feel in your bones.

This writing was the product of a recent guided meditation led by a friend and teacher. The gist of the meditation was (1) getting in touch with our inner child, (2) getting in touch with our future ‘dream’ self, and (3) getting in touch with the shadow aspects that stood between.

After deep contemplation, visualization, and other writing, this was the conclusion of my process…

“I walked into Hell with my Inner Child today. We reckoned with her fear of pain head-on. Fear of Hell is worse than Hell itself. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Bringing a child into the world is choosing to subject them to pain. Life and vitality, yes. But pain as well. And pain. Can’t escape pain. Embracing pain, trusting pain creates life. Using pain for growth gives it a higher purpose. But still, it must be felt.”

We might choose to exchange the word “pain” for “challenge”- you might find that more palatable. Still, the resistance, the edge, the friction persists. It is one side of the duality. We would not be able to grow or experience all the things that come with growth (fulfillment, for example), without challenge. There would be no alchemy without heat, friction, and pressure.

How we relate to challenge, how we relate to pain, is what makes the difference.

“Fear of Hell is worse than Hell itself.”

This inner child, who I met in the meditation, was still living in fear of Hell. Thus, she was avoiding Hell, avoiding pain. She came to me because I have grown the ability to face pain, and to teach her to do the same.

I helped her untangle being with/in pain from the feeling that she’s doing something ‘wrong’. This was the understanding she absorbed- that to be in pain meant that she was doing something wrong, that pain is a punishment.

Suffering is self-punishment, indeed. But pain? There’s no morality around pain. It simply is. Taking away the edge of fear, of resistance, towards pain makes it so much lighter, so much more bearable. That fear of pain is, in fact, suffering.

If you would like that philosophical litany, to explore these ideas and their application further, check out the article above, “Turning Towards Discomfort.”

All the best to you. From one human to another 💚

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