Embrace Pain. Follow Your Passion – Part of Chapter IV of the upcoming book “Find Your Passion” 

Embrace Pain. Follow Your Passion – Part of Chapter IV of the upcoming book “Find Your Passion” 

Are you procrastinating your transition into a more successful and fulfilling career? If so, what limiting beliefs hold you back? Although there’s plenty of them, one of the core categories of limiting belief is the following:

“Pain = Suffering”

This is a big one. How big? Big enough to say that fear of suffering, fear of poverty, and partially fear of death, derive from this belief. You see, in many cases, we aren’t afraid of death itself, but how we’ll die. Many times, we picture and confuse death with suffering, as if we’ll be crucified, or have a torturing experience in general. My great grandfather died in his sleep and due to aging! So, don’t identify death with suffering. Furthermore, we’re not afraid of poverty itself, but its most profound and hardest downsides: emotional and physical suffering. It’s the fear of emotional and physical suffering that scares us most; not poverty and death themselves.

But pain does not mean suffering. The difference? Exactly the same as the one between emotions and feelings. Pain is an emotion, whereas suffering is a feeling, a thought. As an emotion, pain is a physical sensation in our body, while suffering is a negative thought that intensifies the pain, the physical sensation; and given that you are the only one who’s in charge of most of your thoughts, suffering is a voluntary intensification of pain. That’s right.

Pain is part of our human nature, but suffering is a choice. It’s a choice as long as you know this distinction. Now you know it. So, from now on be aware that feeling pain is both a part of our nature, as well as a part of your passion and personal growth journey. Remember that self-awareness and personal growth are like “muscles” you need to stretch and work on. Exactly like the physical muscles you stretch when you work out. They are your mental, emotional, and spiritual “muscles”.

So, here’s a question: do you suffer when you work out? When you stretch your body muscles? If you answer honestly, you’ll realize that you feel pain, not suffering. This applies to all your challenges and obstacles, in your passion journey, and life in general. In other words, you choose to suffer because you let your negative thoughts be in charge of yourself, instead of you being in charge of them. So, for you to be in full charge of them, you need to change the belief that “Pain is suffering”.

Reframe:

• Pain ≠ Suffering
• Pain = Emotion = a physical sensation in your body. 
• Pain = part of your passion and personal growth journey.
• Suffering = Negative thought (feeling).
• Suffering = Voluntary intensification of pain

Furthermore, there are three main subcategories of the belief “Pain is suffering”:

a) “The unknown is dangerous.”

b) “I cannot trust people.” 

c) “I need to control to avoid suffering.”

a) “The unknown is dangerous.”

This is where the “fear of the unknown” is based. We don’t know what’s going to happen next. There are no guarantees for a successful transition to a career with more impact, income, and fulfillment. The result? Our ignorance stops us from finding and following our passion and living the life we really want. This ignorance is accompanied by thoughts like “Stay where you are. It’s both safe & comfortable.”, “It’s going to be weird…I want you to be comfortable. ”, “I have no idea about what I love to do; even if I knew, wouldn’t know how to monetize it…What am I going to do?”, “What if I discover things that I don’t want to?”, and so on.

But is it really about ignorance? Nope. It’s about the fear of emotional and physical suffering. What if we spend so much time, money, and energy, and, in the end, it doesn’t work? That would definitely feel painful, even torturing; unless we realize that pain is not suffering.

In fact, I want you to feel uncomfortable. I want you to embrace and welcome the pain. This is your “growth pain”. That’s when real transformation occurs! Exactly like the transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly. The caterpillar is uncomfortable by being stuck in the goo inside its cocoon. During this time is when it transforms. Likewise, you need to go through the “goo”, the pain, to discover and pursue your passion, and transform into the best version of yourself.

Besides that, remember that you don’t know what you don’t know! Obvious right? So, apply it! In other words, remember that you are not supposed to know everything to start your passion journey; neither should you. So, not knowing is inevitable. It’s a part of the process and your passion journey. In fact, it’s more important for you to have a successful career transition to develop the skill to be comfortable with the uncomfortable! Plus, this applies to your life as well! Because it’s dynamic and it always changes. Now we have the coronavirus pandemic. Tomorrow, we’ll have other pandemics and crises, economic and social ones.

Therefore, focus on exploring, discovering, and learning more about yourself. The more you learn about yourself, the more likely to find your passion. Plus, you will still be alive!!!

So, it’s time to reframe:

 Reframe:

• The unknown is valuable wisdom to come.
• The unknown is part of your passion journey and personal transformation.

Feel free to pre-order the “Find Your Passion” book to transform your career and life by visiting my personal site here. It’s coming on January 15!