Here I am at the top of another page.

Another day, another cup of coffee, another new beginning.

New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings. Its all in your perspective. If you can look at the pain and see it as a catalyst for change, you are the better for it.

Change hurts. Growth hurts. Pain helps us grow.

If it hurts, lean into it.

It will help you to grow, to see what it is in you that is rigid and fixed. Those are the parts of us that need to grow, need to change. What hurts and how it hurts are clues to the parts of us that most desperately need to change and develop.

If we shy away from the things that hurt, we are robbing ourselves of opportunities that could lead to explosive and absolute change. The changes that we need the most to become the most effective and able person we are capable of being.

Trust me, I do not write this out of wisdom or some mistaken saviour complex. I do not write this because I am perfect. I write this because I have hidden from the things that hurt me.

I have buried myself deep, away from the ideas, thoughts and experiences that are painful for me. Times that bring me face to face with my rigidity have sent me into spirals of darkness, down the slope of The Big Black Pit.

Often, on the other side of our rigidity is the downward slope into blackness. We have a choice. I have had a choice. I have often chosen sameness. This has led me into the black pits of self doubt, self destruction.

I have not really learned to always lean into change. Who wants to hurt? No one wishes to choose to hurt, but we all desire change. How often have you looked at the place you are, the person you are, and longed for better? This is most often the source of my blackness, that I see my stuckness, my rigidity and I long to be free of it.

In that longing I have hidden from the very thing that would lead to the change I so deeply desire. Because it hurts.

Lean into it. Nothing can hurt more than being stuck. Stuckness can last forever if we allow it to. It is the only state of being that can perpetually stick us in limbo.

If we hide long enough and stubbornly enough, we will stay the same.

Somehow, life always knows. It will always come up with a way to move us along, to make us grow. Whether we want it to or not.

If we want so desperately to change, take charge. At least we can have that control. We can choose to lean into the pain, the struggle, and allow it to refine us, to redefine us. Choosing to lean into things that challenge us can be empowering. We stop being victims of circumstance and start becoming warriors.

When we choose to stare down the enemy, to stand our ground, we reclaim our power. From this position of power, we are in control. We may not control the circumstance, but we do control our reaction to it. It stops being reaction, and begins to become conscious response.

In responding, rather than reacting, we grow. We learn. We become more self aware, and more able to tame the lions within our own hearts.

Truly, the most terrifying enemy is the fear that we harbour within our own hearts.

When we can face that, own it, and use it to fuel our growth, we become mighty warriors indeed.

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Editor: Renee Picard

Photo: Pixoto