Pain and pleasure

I’ve seen the world many times before, but today it looks different. There’s a different feeling I have, a calmness to my actions, a clarity to my thoughts. This morning, I opened my eyes and everything is new, and all I have to do is enjoy it, not judge anything, just observe it.

Pay attention to how it makes me feel, to the thoughts it brings up, and to what it wakes up in me. There is no pressure to be a certain way, to act as requested, or to move inside certain guidelines. All I need to do is be. Be here, be me, be joyful, be everything, and be nothing.

My mind is still trying to go into the future, to predict what will happen, but I already know that is impossible. Life takes place here, today, in this moment. And yes, my actions will create ripples into the future, but all my power is in this moment.

I’ll step into this new world I see with calmness and clarity. I’ll let it fill every part of my being so that I can experience what the world has in store for me. I am exactly where I need to be, and I’ll do my best to take advantage of the opportunities provided to me.

But, at the same time, I’ll take time to absorb every part of the experiences presented to me. Nothing is fixed in this moment, and who I am now is going to be gone in a few seconds, only to make room for a better me. The more I learn to treasure my existence, the less effort will be involved in my transformation.

I choose to believe that the pain I feel right now has its purpose, even if I can only feel the hurt. Like any other person, I try to avoid pain as much as I can but sometimes is unavoidable. When this happens, all I can do is be patient and go through it.

In time, I have developed two ways to make the hurt bearable. One is to believe that every time I feel pain is because something changes for the better in me. Another is to believe that everything that is causing me pain happens to avoid something worse or to make room for something better in my life.

The stories I tell myself to get through the hard times, they don’t need to be true, but as long as I believe them, they are true to me. And as long as they are true to me, they will work.

It took me a lot of time to understand that pain is as important as pleasure. Both have their purpose. If with pleasure you feel instantly the benefits, with pain, time needs to pass before you can look back and see that it did good. It is not possible to feel good while hurting, but if you don’t see it as a permanent stage, it becomes easier to bear. Move through it with the belief that when is over you will be a better person.

There will be times in life when feeling the pain is the only way to heal. Now you must not run from it, but embrace it. If you can’t, just stand still, and let it wash over you. Let it close the wounds that have been hurting. You will be left with some scars, but they will remind you that you are still alive and that you have healed.