My music is filled with wisdom, advice, and WARNINGS. You can learn from my pain or from your own. ‪#‎Options‬ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1EZBh-_Ls

-Bizzle

11/11/13

Pain can push you to blossom.

"Pain is one of life’s greatest catalysts. It can make you or can break you.
Although pain is not lessened by others feeling and sharing yours, there is a measure of comfort in being wrapped up in others’ concern. It can help you find strength and it can provide guidance and support as you try to get through each day."


http://www.newdaynewlesson.com/feeling-for-others-is-what-makes-humanity-great/

5/14/13 Pain.

Pain in the...
"Pain makes people change, but it also makes them stronger."
~Unknown

This quote couldn't be truer for me at the moment. And, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone. The Universe has been toughening me up over this past weekend, and you know what? I feel pretty badass that I rose to the occasion. Here's the thing that I always come back to: No matter how bad a situation is, there is almost always something that could be worse. And no matter what, we always, ALWAYS have the conscious choice of how we view our situation. We can wallow in the pain and label ourselves victims. Or, we can allow ourselves to feel what we feel and CHOOSE an empowering perspective that catapults our healing. Even if more pain is on the way. We forget how much choice we have in how we view our circumstance. But choice is never broken. And, it's always our call. I dig.

5/5/13

Run in the rain today. Wet on every part of my body. Head already soaked from a shower. Music pushing me with its beats. The run back, the sound of rain and cars driving by pushed my feet with a slower pace. Celebrating a breakthrough of pain in the rain.

Embracing Pain: Life’s Gifts Often Come Wrapped in Sandpaper

“The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow.”

On my personal journey—and there are surely others who walk a similar path—life at times sweeps me up in a wave of utter brokenness, and washes me onto new shores of beautiful transformation, grounded wisdom, and unconditional love.

There is a longstanding slogan in Alcoholics Anonymous that pain is the touch point of all spiritual progress.

Somehow our moments of deep despair and gut-wrenching desperation serve as evolutionary portals to a higher level of grace and resolve. The breakdown itself is the gateway to the breakthrough.

Don’t get me wrong. I do not go chasing after anguish like an adrenaline junkie with a death wish. Just because turmoil shows up as an unexpected guest at my front door that doesn’t mean I graciously invite it in for tea and cookies.

I avoid pain—internal and external—whenever possible. I’ve given birth to two beautiful children and both times I asked for the labor-numbing drugs. If I so much as stub my toe on the bedside table or get into an spat with my husband, I reach for my favorite quilt and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s for comfort.

I have heard there are two types of pain in the world—welcomed and unwelcomed.

Suffering is defined as unwelcomed pain. I am beginning to understand that, like enduring labor, the more I am able to stop resisting pain’s vice-like grip and breathe through the ark—noticing its build, peak, and subsiding—the less of a hold it has on me.

Just like birthing my babies, on the other side of the pain is the promise. Some of life’s greatest gifts come wrapped in sandpaper.

Here are a few of the treasured insights I have received on the other side life’s tribulations. I hope they renew your strength, affirm that you are not alone, and shed a hopeful light on your dark moments.

Pain strengthens you.

In order to build a muscle we lift the weight. But first there is a breaking and bleeding of the capillaries. The healing of the wound is what develops the muscle; injury precedes strength.

Pain refines you.

It takes pressure to make a diamond and fire to purify gold. Nothing cleanses the soul like a good cry. Tears wash away the impurities of fear and attachment and clear the channels for love to freely flow.

Pain lightens the load.

Growing up my mother would often say, “When you are down to nothing, life is up to something.”

Navigating painful moments can feel like squeezing yourself through a tight corridor. There is no room for excess baggage. At the peak of agony I have learned to let go of the “stuff” in my hands—my stories, my fears, my judgments—in order to hold on for dear life.

Pain qualifies you.

Nothing qualifies a person to step up to a big vision for their life like pain. When I count the cost of the rejection and disappointments endured on the journey to living my dreams, it creates a worthiness and grounded resolve that my toughest critics cannot chip away.

Pain connects you.

One tragedy unites people in a far deeper way than a thousand moments of laughter. Falling apart independently and collectively healing has launched powerful, life-changing movements like Mothers Against Drunk Driving (M.A.D.D.). Pain becomes purpose when it is shared.

Like the peaks and falls on a heart monitor, the valley low moments are just as much a confirmation of life as the mountain highs. Lean into pain’s sting. Allow yourself to be placed on its potter’s wheel and transformed into all you can ever hope to be and more.

Remember, life is never happening to you, it is always happening for you. Always.

What Gifts Have You Gained from the Pains of Your Past?

And interestingly, I am left with the same conclusion. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I know this is hard to believe or understand, but if given the opportunity I wouldn’t change a thing. No matter how much I struggle, I wouldn’t give up one ounce of the pain I have experienced, because without each and every experience I have had, I might not be exactly the person I am today.

Many people describe themselves as “happy.” Although I have experienced moments of great happiness, given some serious consideration, I don’t know that I would describe myself as a happy person. I am a pensive person, an intellectual person.

A thoughtful person, I consider things carefully and am deeply empathetic. I am able to hold other’s pain when most people cannot because I understand what it is to feel deep pain, and I am not scared or fearful of that emotion.

These are gifts I have incurred because of the experiences I have had.

Without my experiences, I would be a different person with different gifts. I don’t know that I would like or value that person as much. I don’t know that I would have the same profound gifts that I have to offer.

So when people hear my story and ask how I have survived, I simply reply that I survived because that is what people do. They survive. They survive in pain and they evolve into the person they were intended to be, their most authentic selves.

I value my most authentic self. The person I was intended to be. I am grateful to have evolved into myself, and I wouldn’t desire it to be any other way.

I am someone who can comfort a veritable stranger and hold her as she shares unendingly deep and vast pain where most people would be frightened of such an interaction. I am able to listen without offering a platitude or telling her that “it will get better” because I am able to comprehend that it won’t and that it’s okay.

The pain will simply be part of who she has now become and will grow with her as she continues her journey of continually becoming the person she was meant to be.

For all of these abilities, I am grateful. The abuse I suffered as a child resulted in my developing the profound gift of empathy.

What are your gifts? Have you taken the time to become aware of what they are? Perhaps you too have developed gifts as a result of hardships you have suffered. Maybe you are not even aware that these qualities are gifts.

Or they don’t feel like gifts because they make you different from the norm or make you stand out from the crowd. It can be painful to stand alone.

There have been times in my life when my empathy was misconstrued as oversensitivity, being overly emotional or weak. This was painful. It made me feel lonely, and I had moments of self-doubt.

I urge you to embrace each strength with which you have been graced, as your strengths are your offerings, and your offerings are where your true beauty lies. They are your opportunity to give to the world and the people around you in your own unique way.

This is why when I question how things might have been different if I hadn’t been abused, it’s tempting to wonder momentarily, “What if?”

But I am always left with the same conclusion, which is that I wouldn’t change a thing. I do not wish to be anyone other than who I am, as clearly “to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are.”

I urge you to consider that same conclusion for yourself. Be proud of your beautiful being, be authentic, be brave, and give freely.

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/what-gifts-have-you-gained-from-the-pains-of-your-past/

Endorphins ("endogenous morphine") are endogenous opioid peptides that function as neurotransmitters. They are produced by the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus in vertebrates during exercise, excitement, pain, consumption of spicy food, laughter, love and orgasm, and they resemble the opiates in their abilities to produce analgesia and a feeling of well-being.

Dealing with pain

1. Developing emotional intelligence.
2. Learning to sit with negative feelings.
3. Creating situations for positive feelings.

Pain is part of life, and we can’t avoid it by resisting it. We can only minimize it by accepting it and dealing with it well.

That means feeling the pain and knowing it will pass. No feeling lasts forever. It means sitting in the discomfort and waiting before acting. There will come a time when you feel healed and empowered.

Our power comes from realizing we don’t need to act on pain; and if we need to diffuse it, we can channel it into something healthy and productive, like writing, painting, or doing something physical.

Pain is sometimes an indication we need to set boundaries, learn to say no more often, or take better care of ourselves; but sometimes it just means that it’s human to hurt, and we need to let ourselves go through it.

We tend to be more reactive than active, but that’s a decision to let the outside world dictate how we feel.

We don’t need to sit around waiting for other people to evoke our feelings. Instead, we can take responsibility to create our own inner world.


We can identify what we want to say yes to in life and choose that before struggling with whether or not to say no to someone else. If you love dancing, take a class. If your greatest passion is writing, start a blog. If you daydream about being a musician, start recording.

Don’t worry about where it’s leading. Do it just because you love it.

***
Negative feelings are only negative if they’re excessive and enduring. We won’t hurt ourselves into eternal misery if we let ourselves feel what we need to.

Still, we don’t have to feel bad nearly as often as we think.

If we choose to foster a sense of inner peace, challenge our perceptions and interpretations when our emotions could use some schooling, and learn to take responsibility for our joy, we can not only minimize pain—we can choose to be a source of pleasure, for ourselves and the people around us.

http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-deal-with-uncomfortable-feelings/

Pain is a constant friend
I just want some healing

"The pain you feel today will be the strength you feel tomorrow."

From the pain knowledge is gained

Taking pain and turning it into something powerful


http://www.upworthy.com/bullies-called-him-pork-chop-he-took-that-pain-with-him-and-then-cooked-it-into

Elizabeth Gilbert: Your elusive creative genius

Someone's comment:
" I recognize pain as the essential part of my creative being. I see through It, I can taste it and use it, so I know how the grandiosity of joy feels like. Because you will never understand sweetness of the morning dew without tasting the bitterness of the vespertine rain"

Amen. Painless story-telling proves the progress of healing.

TFA in Detroit

I am officially a new corps member in Detroit! Right now it's a bit difficult to get out of the pain my throbbing head, twitching left eye, stress-fractured foot, and pulled muscle behind my right knee, but I'll just say I am excited. I need some time to rest and process, and when healthy enough, to celebrate.

A new chapter has officially just begun.

The future is now.

Love,
Jess

Rise above the emotions.

You question the moral progression of events/actions because they are not a way to relate to someone.

Brooklyn

Buildings of brick
Stick in my memory
The formation of my earliest memories
Consist of glass, gun, ash, and snow
Glass
Guns
Ash
Snow
Raising children aint easy
Especially in a city in the 90s
My mother got punched in the face on the street
Because she couldn't speak English
And gave off the "wrong" expression,
Inviting a blow to the face
And a final blow to the city of my birth, New York City, borough of Brooklyn

It's funny when stories turn to suffering
Words to pain
Knowledge to tears
When what was normalized and adjusted to causes great tension
And pain
Well, I've woken up that things are not normal anymore
And now I have to cope
Years later