It can be agonising to feel our pain. When we’re faced with the choice to feel or avoid, sometimes it’s just easier to binge-watch that season on Netflix or busy our mouths with comfort foods, we’re reaching for the sensation of immediate relief –  the part of us wants to self-soothe in an attempt to avoid discomfort. 

Exchanging discomfort for the temporary ‘feel good’ that comes with denial becomes just that – temporary. What we are actually doing is avoiding the inevitable because what wants to be felt will be felt, one way or another and in one form or another. It’s like a crying child demanding attention and screaming children will be heard and if not immediately then as something more convoluted years down the line. That toll racks up some serious interest with time!

What keeps us from feeling our screaming inner children is usually our fear of pain and our tendency towards avoidance of it, our inherent predispositions as human beings. For a moment, consider what it would be like if we could see the other side.

• What if these intolerable screams are portals into an uncharted field of possibility?
• What if this is the exact moment, we begin to uncover the textures and constitution of our depths, and our true nature, by venturing into the dark?
• What if this dimension holds the keys to who we are under the guise of pain?

The truth is traversing pain is where transformation lies and if you are needing evidence of this, you would only have to look back into the past. History is littered with great men and women who were not born great leaders or accomplished the impossible because they arrived here that way. Life provided them with the exact ingredients so that they could use them to their benefit and often the benefit of others. They were alchemists, turning their darkness into an irrefutable light.

We have been anaesthetised by the idea that what lurks in the dark and is negative, is something to be avoided within us altogether. To be brave is to feel the fear that comes with walking into the dark and knowing that on the other side is a blindly beautiful light.

• How can we begin this year embracing our dark?
• Spend time getting real with yourself: Is what you are doing serving where you are wanting to go?
• Ask yourself: What is so bad about feeling your emotional discomfort?

Observe your resistance and see what happens.

I wish you a 2023 filled with the magic of love and the roaring courage to be unashamedly YOU!