The Joy of Pain |
Tuesday Jan 15 2008
By Shae Hadden | Bio
It might be said that existence isn’t possible without both pleasant and unpleasant experiences—without pain and pleasure. They are like a guidance system, helping us navigate through life and orienting us away from illness and danger and death.
We have pleasant, positive emotional states like love, joy, sympathy, affection, self-confidence, happiness. And we have unpleasant emotions like boredom, loneliness, jealousy, fear and sadness.
I’ve been relating to the physical pain I’m experiencing since my car accident as a source of learning. I’m actually living ‘in joy’ with it —you might say ‘enjoying’ the fact of being alive and being in pain. Many people I share this with seem surprised, as if it is not possible to observe something beautiful, powerful and strong in being vulnerable, weak and physically less than ‘perfectly healthy’. Yet, that is what I am experiencing.
I am choosing to sacrifice my attachment to suffering to be ‘in joy’.
What could be easier to sacrifice?
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