Pain Pt. 2: Find Your Pain, Find Your Purpose

While day-to-day pains are an obstacle to overcome in this life, there is also the presence of the behind-the-scenes bigger sources of grief to negotiate. Those big-picture scenarios that make you cringe or cause your heart to beat a bit faster are usually inauspicious evidence of your life’s necessary direction. The remnants of childhood scars or early adulthood trauma reverberate through your consciousness in a way that should compel you to act. These associations represent purpose, provided you don’t allow yourself to become paralyzed by them.

All grown people on this Earth have something that particularly stirs them; something that hits close to home each time they hear a story related to this particular place of pain. I am a firm believer that this painful association is a guidepost on the path down which we are individually called to tread. It is a shining beacon that calls us to act and to do and be something more than we are today. It is our purpose.

A person who was bullied or harassed as a child has a few choices to make as an adult: curl up into a ball every time they hear or see such behavior and encourage others to do the same, or become so enraged that they act impulsively and perhaps become bullies themselves. Another choice is to positively impact other former victims and to sew the seeds of self-defense, knowledge and high-mindedness amongst a new generation.

A person whose life has been touched by emotional, physical or sexual abuse can choose to be crippled by that pain (and no one could or would really blame them for being so affected, at least for a time) or they can recover from it and allow the experience to help them work to prevent that same abuse from befalling others. Their pain can push them into a place of advocacy and care that can positively impact hundreds or thousands of lives.

Finally, we come to my pain: addiction and compulsion. As a recovering addict whose addiction manifests itself in countless substances and behaviors, I know that I am in a unique position to be a voice of reason, experience and hope for others in recovery or those still struggling. I know this to be a particular part of my purpose in this life.  For a time, the humiliation of my struggle kept me from feeling like I was in a place of helping others, but I know now that all those hard times were simply forging the foundation of my life’s aim.

What is it that uniquely stirs in you a particular passion? What has been your struggle? Once you pay necessary mind to your pain, I urge you to look beyond the hurt and find your purpose and ACT on it. Life takes on a particularly meaningful glow from that point forward, just as it is supposed to.