Embracing Pain as a Tool for Self - Transformation

Embracing Pain as a Tool for Self - Transformation
by Cameron Day

Every person on Earth has lived through painful experiences. Pain and
emotional suffering seem to be unavoidable on this planet, but what
purpose do they serve? Is it possible that we actually choose to
experience pain and suffering in order to overcome them? If that is
so, then how do we overcome our pain and what will life be like
without the emotions tied to our past holding us back? Hang on tight,
because we're about to go down a quantum rabbit hole, and if you make
it all the way to the end, you'll be glad you did.

Evolving through pain

An examination of the spiritual teachers throughout recorded human
history shows they all went through periods of intense suffering prior
to achieving a state of full enlightenment. Jesus, Buddha, Osiris,
Horus, Krishna and many more all have extremely painful experiences
and even physical death as part of their recorded histories and
legends, yet they overcame these adversities to become greater beings.

"We all have our cross to bear" is a common phrase in western
countries with strong Christian influences. What this means is that
every person is dragging around large amounts of unresolved pain, but
it also hints to us that our own divine nature can transcend this
pain, just as Jesus transcended his.

Painful experiences cause us to question our lives and the reality we
are experiencing. If we question long and often enough, we may come
to the realization that there is much more to us than our physical
bodies, our ego minds, and the physical world. These realizations
usually only come about because of a disruptive (painful) experience
that causes us to question reality as we know it. By contrast, people
who have lived lives of relative comfort, ease, wealth and physical
gratification are normally not likely to question the nature of
reality. Why should they, when everything in the physical world goes
their way?

When viewed from this perspective, we can start to understand that
painful experiences help us to grow. Don't worry, you probably don't
need to experience new pain to stimulate your evolution, because we
all have enough pain in our past that we can grow from if we choose
to. With this in mind, let us examine the role of pain as a catalyst
for evolution, and the issues that arise when we resist and try to
cover up the pain from our past.

What you resist persists

Resistance to any aspect of our selves, or against any past or present
experience, creates judgment and painful emotions within the psyche.
When we judge ourselves or the events of our past as being "bad" or
"wrong" and then suppress those aspects of ourselves, we create a
division within the psyche where the pain is stored. Because our true
state of being is wholeness, love and joy, any pain that exists within
us must be addressed and "loved back home" so that we can once again
be whole within ourselves.

Unfortunately, our egoistic desire to only view ourselves in a
positive light and for others to always see us as "good people"
automatically prevents us from admitting our own pain and limitations
to ourselves. Our desire to "not feel that pain anymore" creates a
resistance point that will subjugate the memory of that pain into a
"second class thought" that we attempt to banish from the kingdom of
our minds.

This refusal to acknowledge our pain, faults and shortcomings prevents
us from truly healing ourselves and our minds. Most people
automatically bury these thoughts as they try to rise to the surface
of the mind for contemplation and analysis, choosing instead to
rationalize "bad" behavior (self-judged, of course) or push away
painful memories because "that's in the past and I have to move on" or
because they believe that "dwelling on the negative" creates more
"negative" experiences.

If we can instead have the courage to allow painful memories to rise
to the surface of our consciousness, then without judgment set the ego
aside and allow ourselves to truly *feel* the emotions that are
associated with the memory, an opportunity occurs to transmute the
emotions of pain and suffering, which only exist due to judging the
memory as "bad" and resisting it.

What does it mean to transmute an emotion?

All human emotional states are variations on two master emotions:
Love and Fear. When a person judges an event in their life as bad,
they begin to develop a fear of similar "bad" experiences in their
lives. This fear is attached to the event in the psyche of an
individual, and every time they remember the experience, the judgment
of the situation as "bad" and the fear of it happening again come
immediately to mind. This fear triggers unconscious self-protection
mechanisms that suppress the memory so that the feeling of fear will
go away and they can return their minds to thoughts about pleasurable
things.

This innate desire to move away from pain and towards pleasure is an
effective tool for preventing us from experiencing bodily injury --
when a hand touches a hot stove, for example. However in our own
minds we must push past that reflexive protection mechanism and
embrace our inner pain if we want to heal it.

Every time we resist and suppress a memory because it triggers
painful, fear based emotions, we use a portion of our own innate
energy resources to "seal off" that emotional-memory complex so that
it can't easily return to our awareness in the future. This
compartmentalization of the mind increases over time to the point
where most of us are putting more energy into suppressing and hiding
from our pain than we are into daily life. This state of fractured
and suppressed self-consciousness is why people manifest disease,
hardship and continual pain, which they attempt to "seal off" in the
hope that if they just focus on the positive that their life will improve.

We transmute pain, suffering and fear back into a neutral state of
energy by allowing a painful experience and the associated emotions to
come fully into our awareness without judging it, resisting it or
trying to bury it. When the full light of our conscious awareness is
focused on a limiting emotional-memory complex while we are in a state
of total acceptance, the energy we have put into the pain and the
resistance to the pain transmutes back to a state of pure energy that
we can reintegrate into our consciousness.

The unknown vastness of Being

Our inner state of being is incredibly vast, although most people are
only aware of the very small aspect of waking consciousness and daily
life perceived through the 5 senses. However, as every single sage,
mystic, master, shaman, mage and spiritual teacher throughout human
history has told us over and over again, we are infinite beings
capable of infinite experiences, and we are, in fact, divine beings
existing in multiple levels of reality simultaneously. Most esoteric
traditions also teach that we have a "Higher Self" or divine aspect
within us that connects us to the nonphysical realms of existence.

Most people who hear such teachings only form a mental, ego concept of
the divine aspect that is within each of us. The ego imagines a
cosmic big brother that will give us all the material "stuff" that we
want if only we can figure out the right way to ask for it. This is a
limited belief that must be transcended because the higher self isn't
really interested in our material comforts -- it simply wants us to
make contact with it so that we can consciously evolve.

Reconnecting to our own higher Self simply opens the doors of
perception so that we can explore the vastness of our own
consciousness. Our higher self, once we establish contact, can be our
personal guide on this journey of self-examination and self-healing.
(Go to page 2 for much more)

A bigger picture view of Karma & "Re"incarnation

Because our consciousness is unimaginably vast, it will compensate for
our refusal to embrace the pain of our past experiences in such a way
that the pain can be explored, understood in the context of creating
wisdom, and eventually transmuted so that the pain AND the energy that
was used to suppress it are freed up to be used in unlimited modes of
expression.

For example, a person who was molested as a child will usually
suppress the memory of the experience and the painful emotions
associated with it such as shame, self-hatred, hatred of the molester,
etc. Repeatedly suppressing these emotions for years makes them more
intense in the psyche, and that person's consciousness will seek an
outlet so that the energy that is being suppressed can be released.

Quantum Physics has shown that time and even physical matter are both
simply manifestations of consciousness. This means that consciousness
can and does use the rich tapestry of physical human incarnation to
gain wisdom through experience. If a person refuses to work through
repressed pain, then the vastness of their consciousness may create
another incarnation, another lifetime to work through these issues.
Sometimes it will create more than one incarnation.

A portion of that person's greater consciousness will incarnate into a
lifetime where the suppressed emotions from *this* lifetime can not be
suppressed. Using the example above, in one lifetime they may
incarnate as a serial sexual abuser. Another lifetime may involve
being serially sexually abused. Yet another lifetime may be spent
consciously being a "sexual deviant" with willing partners.

All three lifetimes are happening simultaneously and in parallel with
the current incarnation that "spawned" them because past and present
are physical reality concepts based in the illusion of time, and our
higher aspects of consciousness exist outside of time. Indeed, our
higher levels of consciousness mold time and physical matter as easily
as children mold play-dough.

If a psychic "past life reader" were to examine this person's psyche
and other lives, they would tell the person that they have "past"
lifetimes of being sexually abused and being an abuser, which is why
they experienced abuse in this lifetime. However, if the person can
completely integrate the painful experience of sexual abuse into their
consciousness, if they can take back all of the energy they have put
into judging the experience, judging themselves, judging the abuser,
and then reclaim the energy they have put into suppressing the
emotional-memory complex, they will have no more need to process those
emotions through other incarnations. When that occurs, what happens
to those other lifetimes?

Dimensions of time and erasing incarnations

Through bravely embracing our pain, holding it in our awareness and
reclaiming our power associated with it, we can unravel the hidden
fragments of our minds that extend out into other incarnations which
exist solely as a means to process the pain. Once every trace of the
fragmented pain is reclaimed and brought into full conscious
awareness, we will no longer "need" the other lifetimes that were
created only for the purpose of bringing the hidden pain into the
light of awareness, and those incarnations will simply cease to exist.

This concept of simultaneous incarnations that can be created and
dissolved is challenging to accept and is impossible to "prove" with
our current state of science and technology. The mind boggles at how
powerful we would have to be that an entire incarnation could be
created to address an issue that is unresolved in our psyche. Yet
isn't that the exact premise of reincarnation -- that we "come back"
to work through lessons that we haven't learned? The only real
disconnect is our perception of time as immutable and ever flowing in
one direction.

The concept becomes clearer if we shift away from thinking of time as
a linear force and instead imagine time as a board game where each
square on the board represents a point in "linear" time. In this
physical lifetime we go through just a few squares on the board game
of time, which is all our physical senses can perceive. Yet the
higher aspect of our self is outside of the game, and it can put a
game piece (lifetime) anywhere on the board that one is needed. This
means that a "future" incarnation can be placed in your linear "past."

If the game isn't being played fully by one lifetime's personality,
the Higher Self that is overseeing the game will simply put a new
piece (lifetime) on the game board of time that will "play out" the
necessary acceptance of experience that is missing from the other game
piece. Should the original player elevate their game to a higher
level and embrace their hidden pain, the supplemental game pieces are
no longer necessary to complete the game and can be removed from the
board.

How do I elevate my game?

The center of our universe of consciousness is simply where we place
our awareness. Therefore, we become the prime creator of our own inner
universe once we consciously engage our evolution through
self-healing. Any lifetime could have become the "master player" on
the game board, but *we* chose it to be *this* lifetime. We can know
this because you are reading this article now and I have written it
using a body experiencing time in the year 2008.

The process of reclaiming energy tied up in fear based emotions and
repression takes time, effort and tremendous patience. The rewards,
however, are vastly beyond anything we can imagine for ourselves in
our present state of consciousness. The "inner space" created by
removing the walls of repression and resistance that we have built up
around ourselves allows our minds to operate from a space of present
moment awareness, awareness of the infinite, and awareness of the game
of physical "reality" that we are playing.

When there are no longer any secret compartments in our minds, we
won't need too many other players/lifetimes in our game of physical
incarnation. Through expanding our consciousness into an undivided
focal point of our incarnation game, we elevate the way we play the
game to a level where miracles occur. In truth, we are simply
allowing the infinite energy of creation to naturally flow through us,
for a miracle is simply an event created by an undivided, unlimited
consciousness, which the limited ego mind cannot comprehend.

Don't put your inner world aside when it asks for attention. Choose
your tools of transformation and set your mind to delving into the
aspects of your life that you have been trying to forget. Bring them
to the surface, dive into their depths and bring those fragments of
your self back home through self-love and forgiveness.


Cameron Day is a long distance spiritual healer and psychic explorer,
with a focus on helping others integrate their “material mind” with
their own higher levels of Divine Mind. He has created a system of
self-transformation tools that anyone can use to clear limiting
patterns and access their own higher wisdom. This system is available
for free at AscensionHelp.com. He also offers one on one remote
clearing sessions to help you get as clear as possible as quickly as
possible so that your experience of life can be more abundant, loving
and joyful.

http://www.ascensionhelp.com