Staying awake

I find meaning and gain wisdom 

from the difficult experiences of my life

I have heard a catchy song on the radio lately by Avicii called Wake me Up. The chorus is what sticks out to me the most, "wake me up when it's all over, when I'm wiser and I'm older. All this time I was finding myself and I didn't know I was lost."

How nice would that be? More than once during an uncomfortable experience in my life I have wished I could just check out emotionally. My instinct has been to dodge pain and impatiently wait for it to pass. I think, "just let me go to sleep and when I wake up hopefully this will all be behind me."

When I was in middle school I remember learning about osmosis. I would joke that I was going to sleep with my books under my pillow so I could just learn by osmosis as I slept. It is no more likely that I can avoid the difficult experiences of my life and expect to be wiser just because time has passed, than it is to expect myself to understand calculus if I put my head down on the textbook and fall asleep. 

Whatever wisdom I have is earned. The lessons that can come from difficult experiences are often hard to see in the moment, but if I am unwilling to let myself fully experience what is happening I am likely to miss them completely. Wisdom comes from the hard work of facing my challenges and learning from them. Pain and discomfort can teach me, but if I try to avoid them the lesson is lost. Today I will be fully present in all of my experiences so that I may glean meaning and wisdom from them. 

Professor Pain

I learn from my pain

My daughter slipped off of the counter-top this morning.  It was not the first time nor is it likely to be the last.  She likes to play on it, balance herself like she's an Olympic gymnast, and other exciting but equally dangerous activities for a 4 year old.  She got hurt, but probably not badly enough to stop.

I accept pain as my teacher. What limited wisdom I may have usually comes from the experience gained from making mistakes. Those mistakes usually involve pain. Whether the pain is emotional or physical it signals me I have something I can learn. Unfortunately the lesson is not always obvious. Sometimes the pain is trying to teach me to avoid something but at other times the pain is inviting me to embrace and experience something.

Pain is powerful but it can also be quickly forgotten, numbed, or suppressed in various ways. Unless I embrace pain as a teacher and learn the lessons it wants to teach me I am destined to repeat those same mistakes and re-experience the pain. During my time in the classroom I have learned that you can't teach anybody something that they don't want to learn. No matter how powerful and insistent pain may call out to me it is in vain and can not teach me anything until I am willing to experience it and learn.