Dillan DiGiovanni thinks that getting hurt helps us feel more free.
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I have a cold.
It’s a really bad one.
I have all the typical symptoms we know so well. The symptoms we try to avoid because they are so uncomfortable. The sniffling, the sneezing, the blowing, the congestion. All of it.
But I’m actually really happy to be sick, for a few reasons.
1) it means my body is working. Being sick is a sign of a healthy immune system. The presence of symptoms means it is doing its job. When I am sick, I feel gratitude for the health I have and send tremendous compassion for those with weakened or compromised immune systems.
2) it gives me a good reason to slow down. I was probably burning the candle at both ends for too long and ignored what my body needed, namely longer periods of rest. Now that I’m sick, I have the PERFECT excuse to sit and write or watch movies all day–two things I’ve said I wanted to do for a long time.
3) it will never compare to the Sinus Infection of 2004. About 11 years ago, I had a wretched sinus infection. It was the most sick I have ever been and I will never forget it. I couldn’t breathe, eat or sleep. I just lay on my back in my bed (I was housesitting at the time) and prayed for the agony to subside. When I get sick now, I remember that excruciating pain and consider anything else to be a tickle in comparison.
Because it will never be as bad as the past and it helps me take better care of myself now, I let myself get sick with a cold. I allow it to be.
Now, I want you to do the same for your heart. I want you to let yourself get hurt. So many people try to avoid it. They do everything they can to avoid being vulnerable and spend their whole lives holding their hands up to try to fend off pain and suffering at every turn.
But allowing ourselves to get hurt, while incredibly painful at the time, actually shows us how strong we are. It shows us who our true friends are. It shows us how and where to make different and better decisions. It shows us that we can survive the thing we think we can’t.
When we open our hearts to people or situations and we experience tremendous hurt, we often want to close off our hearts and protect them from further harm. That’s good! We should follow that instinct–with those certain individuals or situations. They have proven themselves to be untrustworthy or unreliable or unsafe. But we shouldn’t do it all the time, in all circumstances, with all people or situations. When we do this, we lose out on life.
When we let ourselves get hurt, however, we get something much more. When we stop and take some time to understand the hurt better, we can examine our responsibility in that experience. While we cannot control the behavior of other people, we can certainly make good use of what we learn moving forward in our own lives. We can be responsible for what we did and what we will do moving forward.
Why did we allow that person more time or opportunities to disrespect us?
What were we not seeing about that person’s true nature?
Why did we stay at a job that didn’t meet our needs, financially or otherwise?
What do we really want in a friend?
What have we been settling for or what scraps were we feasting on?
Who do WE want to be for others and in other situations moving forward?
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Most people don’t want to do this much work. As a recent client of mine said to me, “Evolution is exhausting.” She’s absolutely right. I told her that it incredibly exhausting to be introspective and self-aware enough to be considerate and intentional about other people. It requires work that most people aren’t selfless enough to take on. They don’t think very critically about their behavior or actions or motivations, they just act on their desires and wants and needs. They do the bare minimum to get by in life from fear of failure, and they surround themselves with people who lives their lives this way, too.
And, at some point, this will catch up with them.
By allowing ourselves to get hurt and taking it on intentionally, we choose to feel more relief and less pain moving forward. Yes, my cold today is annoying, but when I reflect on the “worst I’ve ever felt”, it pales in comparison. I feel the same way about past relationships, romantic or platonic, and past jobs I’ve had. When something doesn’t feel great now, I size it up alongside experiences in my past and get to feel a tremendous sense of relief. Had I never allowed myself to feel the pain and explore it so intimately in the past, I wouldn’t have this valuable experience to draw from.
Let yourself be hurt. Allow yourself the gift of learning from the tough stuff of life so you make different decisions in the future. It will only set you free.
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Find me at www.dillandigi.com.
I’m on Twitter at @dillandigi.
Photo: Leonid Mamchenkov/Flickr
Hurting is part of the human experience. Perspective is part of human growth.