Day 225: I Have No Use for This
Do you believe that suffering makes you a better person or that it's a useless journey with no benefits?
What makes me ask the question is a line Dolly Parton said in a movie where she played a radio show psychologist.
She was talking to a woman with a martyr complex and told her to get off the cross because someone needed the wood.
When it comes to suffering, Alan Cohen says, "At the early stages of our spiritual journey, we require strong contrast to get our attention and prompt us to learn our lessons. If we are deeply asleep, we need a potent wake-up call, like an alarm clock that gets progressively louder until you can't ignore it."
In A Course in Miracles, it teaches that you can put things down that no longer serve you by saying, "I have no use for this."
The interesting thing in all of this is, just like the title of Wayne Dyer's book, You'll See It When You Believe It, we find evidence to support what we believe, not the other way around most of the time.
We tend to dismiss information we uncover that doesn't support our current beliefs when shifting our beliefs is a big enough shift that it makes us feel unsafe.
Yet, it is possible to get to a point where we've had enough of suffering, and no matter how scary it might be out there beyond what we currently know as our lives, we say, enough. I no longer have any use for this.
Then we can shift whatever it is or walk away.
When I thought about what Alan Cohen said about strong contrasts to get our attention, I could immediately come up with enough examples in my life to need both hands to count them.
From early childhood to now, so many examples of strong contrast to show me what I wanted and what I didn't want. Experiences that felt anywhere from unpleasant to horrible as a contrast for what feels good.
All of those situations gave me clarity on what I value, who I am, what I want in my life.
So in my life, there is truth to trauma as a path to clarity. I also believe it's possible to get there without the trauma if we have a strong desire to move toward something we really want. And that's the path I choose now.
And I have had my share of what he calls potent wake-up calls. Like the breast cancer.
I don't know if it was truly the most life-changing experience for me, but it feels that way.
Maybe because I went through it purposely seeking out the lessons I had missed learning in an easier way.
When I finally was able to escape my abuser, that was a long period of suffering. A decade. That was the period of my most significant personal growth because I was looking for answers inside myself as to why I would have this experience in my life.
And for a long time, I thought I had to stay in it until I figured out those answers.
But at some point I realized I was in a prison I had created for myself as much as what he was physically and mentally doing to me.
I didn't have to have all the answers to leave. I just needed to figure out how to escape. So I did.
That was a turning point for me.
I stopped making my freedom dependent on understanding everything that had happened.
The lightbulb went on for me when I saw a drawing of a man in a prison cell. He was holding onto the bars like he wanted someone to let him out, but the cell didn't have any bars on the side behind him.
It had been wide open the whole time, if he had just focused his attention in another direction, he would have seen it.
That opened my mind, and I created my plan to get out.
So, back to my original question.
For me the answer is both. Sometimes suffering is the only path we understand and it serves as a catalyst until we get to the point where we decide it's a useless journey with no benefits.
There comes a point when we are allowed to say, "I have no use for this."
No more needing pain to prove we are growing.
No more staying in the prison until we understand every reason we ended up there.
Sometimes the lesson is simply to turn around and notice the open side of the cell.
Today's Gentle Practice
Think about one place where you may be waiting for all the answers before you allow yourself to move forward.
Ask yourself:
What if I don't need to understand everything before I choose freedom?
You don't have to dismiss what the experience taught you.
And you don't have to keep carrying pain once you've seen what you needed to see.
Maybe today is simply a day to say, "I have no use for this anymore."
With you,
Lynn
Join me on Substack and read Letters from The Threshold
