Are We in Enough Pain Yet, Globally?

2 of 3: the most powerful questions to transform pain

When it comes to loving your children, you would do anything right? It doesn’t matter if you’re not a parent. If you have any self respect, you can relate in some way to what I’m saying. You would bolt to pull them back if a car was about to hit them. You would find food to feed them in a recession. You would die for them — if for some reason you had to — right?

Last week I shared the first of three most powerful questions to transform pain. Why?

Because most of us are only half-alive, and that’s not good enough. We need to be intensely jolted by painful, scary situations to open our eyes and come fully alive. (See Exhibit A: American Society and Planet Earth right now.)

How about loving your own self radically? Would you go that far? Maybe you’re thinking, Well of course I would. Now I’ll ask, why are you waiting?

Last winter, an old friend went into emergency surgery and hospitalization for a massive pulmonary embolism. About 1/3 of these cases are fatal. She is still alive.

In a recent post, she wrote, “Before this, I had never faced a serious health crisis. There are many lessons I’m carrying forward but one stands out: nothing is promised and every day is sacred, no matter how mundane it appears on the surface. I used to believe that if death ever came for me early, I would sense it creeping in. Now, I see how arrogant that was.”

I don’t know how often she took life for granted before she almost died, but I do see very few people actually being fully alive, beaming with gratitude because literally —

We are all ONLY ALIVE NOW.

Sadly, this tends to not make sense until we almost die.

Until then, we tolerate mediocrity at work, in our friendships and in romance. We see ourselves as victims of a screwed-up society instead of owning our power to create the lives we deserve. We wait another day, for someone else to change. That is half-living, and it isn’t good enough for you — or your children. We blame. We lie to ourselves, pretending our pain doesn’t exist. We live in a state of dis-ease until one day, oops, it manifests physically in our bodies and suddenly, we wish we wouldn’t have waited so long to fully love ourselves — to make Love to fear, as I call it.

The only thing in the way of you living an extraordinarily vibrant life, where it feels like every moment, you are living your soul purpose and “making Love” to existence, is your choice to tolerate less than your full truth.

Here’s the question. The second most powerful question to transform pain, and prevent dis-ease in all its forms, is:

What is it costing me to tolerate this pain?

My fellow mothers reading this — when we take better care of ourselves, our children benefit tremendously. Yet somehow we keep that level of self-care at bay, choosing instead to join society in the oppression of mothers, which is the oppression of women, which is the oppression of children, which is the oppression of life.

We don't usually do it consciously, but I'm calling us out — WE DO IT. By withholding love from ourselves, we withhold love from our children.

What would you do today if you gave yourself full permission to radically love yourself? One impact of this choice would be that your children would see that you value your life as much as you tell them to value theirs. That’s integrity.

When we accept that loving ourselves directly improves the lives of our children, and the society and world we live in, is that enough for us to say yes? Are we in enough pain yet, globally?

Transforming our fear and pain is the way to go if we want love to reign. It's as simple as that. And it's far from easy.

Most people are not brave or self-honoring enough to do this. Are you?

With every word, I am loving you.
🩵
Jess