Why Does Finding My Life’s Purpose Hurt?
Hint: You’re probably avoiding it because it hurts
While teaching a Suicide Prevention course, I was asked by a young, 13-year-old Brazilian boy, “What is my purpose?” In disbelief, I almost cried. I wanted to hold him because I felt he’d been pondering for quite some time to ask me this question at such a young age.
Holding back tears, I replied, “Experience. You have to go through life and experience many things before you begin to understand your life’s purpose. Don’t worry. You have a while to go.” Smile. Spiritually, I truly did feel he had a while to go. Not in an age sense, but in experience.
While writing a completely different blog post about friendships, I spent the better half of my brain dump writing about the lack of emotional support from my ex-family and friends. I came across the concept of pain and how it relates to one’s life’s purpose.
Pain is Personal
This is a two-fold concept. The first is that there are two ways to define emotional pain.
1.) Pain that’s inflicted (external)
2.) Pain we create ourselves (internal)
It’s fair to say that we generally have a mixture of the two.
The interesting part is inflicting pain on someone else and creating pain within ourselves share the same purpose, which is to hurt. Both concepts share commonalities in that what people think and say to us, what they tell to others about us, and how they treat us is the same way we create pain within ourselves.
When we call ourselves names, treat our bodies like sh*t, and dim our lights because we don’t want to outshine those around us, we’re creating our own pain. This is one way pain is personal.
The second is the idea of pain being owned. Kept. Held prisoner. We literally personalize the pain within. We tend to do this because we want our pain to mean something.
In turn it becomes apart of us. Pain was never meant to be apart of us. It was never meant to stay.
This is why holding onto it feels so terrible. It doesn’t want to be there, so it festers inside until we choose to heal, then release it. It’s not ours to possess.
I personally believe we feel and work through pain mainly for life experience. To help us understand ourselves and empathize with others and the world around us.
There is a higher purpose to this pain sh*t and most times it doesn’t come easy. If you’re asking to understand your life’s purpose, I’m almost certain it’s written in your pain.
What’s your pain?
