hurt fail lose; grow know gain; lessons & pain
in order to grow.
Sometimes we must fail
in order to know.
Sometimes we must lose
in order to gain.
Because some lessons in life
are best learned through pain.
A wise friend on a spirit quest of her own posted this meme on her FB profile. I commented with the bit below.
I should be a bit more careful about posting these in this matter-of-fact fashion, which I do from time to time. I realize, in retrospect, that it probably comes off as dismissive or arrogant. It’s not intended to be. It’s just that reading little wisdoms often tweaks something inside, a flood of words like bubbles rising to the surface, and I just go with them and see what comes out. It’s often — more often than often… usually — a message to self as much as to anyone else.
In fact, these words came up again in a session with my ‘spirit-guide’ (counsellor) the very next day, in a most pertinent and useful way. For the next little while, they’ll need to be something of a mantra for keeping me on my own path, a reminder that the chaos and turmoil of the changes I’m experiencing are a good and beautiful thing, that the pain expresses my fear and confusion, and not the process of growth itself. And, so, I offer them again here, because, hey, repetition reinforces learning, and I can use the repetition right now.
That’s OK, because we can grow from being hurt.
That’s OK, because there is always failure on the path to success and the only true failure is to stop striving.
That’s OK, because in our loss we can learn how much we really have and, sometimes, how small the loss was.
But, as we grow and learn and succeed we come to realize that our pain consists of the chaos, confusion and turmoil of change. When we learn that these are both inevitable and transitory, and that such moments are essential components for the process for learning, growth and success, we can begin to detach them from the pain we perceive in them. We can begin to welcome such moments and experience them for the gift they truly are.
