Accept pain

I live in a pleasure-seeking society. Pain is to be avoided at all costs. Unfortunately, running from pain does no good. Pain accumulates and plagues me later. Today I accept that I have painful feelings or experiences. I will not be overwhelmed by pain but simply feel it and move on.



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Find my own path

There are many paths to self-growth and spiritual awakening. The path of another may not work for me. My style is different. Today I respect others for growing in the way they need and respect myself for finding my own path.

Find Light in Dark Times

Chapter 10:

Shock! Treatment for the Soul

(sample excerpts)



Rodin hand sculpture

Sculpture by Rodin, photo by author.


Find Light in Dark Times gives you philosophical and spiritual tools to help you recover from losses of all kinds, then emerge into the light. These are sample sections from Chapter 10 on Shock! treatment for the soul.



Maybe you’re stuck in ruts that you’re good at. Let’s say you’re a brilliant waitress or doctor, a gifted mechanic or lawyer, a talented teacher or garbage collector, a skilled collector of disability payments. Whatever you’re good at, beware these realms. The more you identify with what makes you special, the more numb you may become. As you specialize, you limit your spirit unless you simultaneously de-specialize in other areas. Being really good at something, anything, tends to trap your soul and pin you into a form of being that crystallizes into durable structure. You become not just what you do, but especially what you are good at.

If you’re good at caring for people, you become the nurse, the doctor, the psychotherapist. If you’re gifted at painting, you become the artist, the house painter, the muralist. You define your being through your doing.

The better you get at your job or profession, usually the less likely it is for you to be comfortable as a beginner. You become an expert and you identify with the role of proficiency. Other people admire you for your special ability. You identify even more with your talents. Paradoxically, your gifts entrap your soul. The more comfortable you become, the less freedom you feel.

If this is you, and you feel mired in what used to make you happy and fulfilled, time for shock treatment. Time to shake up your safe comfortable world. Time to shock your sense of who you are by plunging yourself into something you are not.

What do you wish you could do but never had the talent or courage for? Fine art? Golf? Singing on stage? World travel? Computer programming?

Sign up for a class at your local community college in something you wish you were good at but aren’t. Then go and be humble. If you’re brand new at something, your experience of it resembles that of a young college student who just entered school. You have fresh eyes. Your responses have no history, no programmed patterns built over years of experience. This freshness rattles your spirit into allowing more light to shine within.


. . . (Winter camping section)



When I was in my teens, I had a friend with whom I bicycled and backpacked regularly. We were also climbing partners. For a few years we found it appealing to hone our skills in winter camping. We carried snowshoes and giant down parkas to reckon with deep snow and frigid temperatures. Once we learned how to manage comfortably in cold conditions, we began to extend our limits. We would listen to weather reports to find out when the most furious blizzards were expected to blast into nearby mountains. Those were the times we chose to pack our gear and head for the trail head. We loved encountering Nature at full bore, hurling everything she had at us, testing our strength, our ingenuity, our resourcefulness.

We made mistakes and learned from them. For example, never wear cotton underwear, including long cotton underwear, in extreme cold. You will jeopardize your safety when it gets damp and you get chilled. Fortunately we did not make mistakes that killed us. Instead we grew stronger. As you devise your own shock treatment for your soul, don’t set yourself up for accidents or harm, or jeopardize anyone else in any way. If you have not gone backpacking before, don’t set out on a month-long trek. Go with little shocks then crank up the amperage as you grow. Your aim is to startle your spirit into growing, not expiring.

Shock treatment for the spirit brings excitement and adventure. Surprising the soul should be fun sometimes, not always scary. Put your spirit on a roller coaster ride and you will gain perspective you never dreamed of. If life has not brought you sufficient drama, has not tested your strength in previously unimaginable ways, then create your own. You don’t have to wait for life to dish you challenges to benefit from their growth potential.

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