The Pain May Be the Way.
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness.
It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”– Mary Oliver
You already know what I’m about to say.
Not in your head. Not as a theory.
In your bones. In the scar tissue behind your ribs.
Pain was your first teacher.
It was the moment everything broke, and something truer started whispering underneath the wreckage.
But most of us were taught to run from that voice.
To fix it. Suppress it. Explain it away.
To label it as dysfunction and move on.
Here’s the problem:
When you avoid the pain, you avoid the path.
Because in a world obsessed with self-optimisation, progress, and "good vibes only," we've forgotten a truth older than language:
Pain may be the way.
We Learned to Numb, Not to Listen
From day one, we were told that pain was a problem to solve.
Cut your knee? Get a plaster.
Heartbreak? Swipe right.
Grief? Push it down and get back to work.
And if you couldn’t fix it fast enough, you were weak.
So we became pain-killers in our own lives - drinking, lifting, fucking, scrolling, building, achieving.
We created success on top of suffering.
Built empires on foundations of unresolved trauma.
Put suits on our sadness and called it “drive.”
But unresolved pain doesn’t stay buried.
It morphs. It leaks. It becomes the silent saboteur behind every self-destructive decision.
And still - if we can just keep moving, maybe we won’t have to feel it.
Right?
We Learned to Numb, Not to Listen
From day one, we were told that pain was a problem to solve.
Cut your knee? Get a plaster.
Heartbreak? Swipe right.
Grief? Push it down and get back to work.
And if you couldn’t fix it fast enough, you were weak.
So we became pain-killers in our own lives - drinking, lifting, fucking, scrolling, building, achieving.
We created success on top of suffering.
Built empires on foundations of unresolved trauma.
Put suits on our sadness and called it “drive.”
But unresolved pain doesn’t stay buried.
It morphs. It leaks. It becomes the silent saboteur behind every self-destructive decision.
And still - if we can just keep moving, maybe we won’t have to feel it.
Right?
The Lie of the Clean Exit
There’s this fantasy many of us carry:
That one day we’ll be healed. Done. Free.
That we’ll wake up and the pain will have passed, like a flu.
But that’s not how it works.
Pain doesn’t leave you alone until it’s been heard.
It doesn’t disappear when you distract it - it grows louder.
It becomes your posture, your patterns, your “type,” your temper, your timeline.
Healing doesn’t mean getting rid of pain.
It means learning to sit in the dark with it long enough to hear what it came to teach.
And it always has something to teach.
The Turning Point: Choose to Enter the Pain, Not Escape It
Here’s where everything changes.
What if the pain wasn’t the enemy?
What if it was the doorway?
What if that heartbreak was the start of your real standards?
What if that betrayal was the moment your boundaries got born?
What if that loss taught you what presence actually means?
What if the pain is the curriculum?
Then suddenly, it’s not a detour - it’s the path.
You don’t grow when everything’s easy.
You grow when you’re forced to let go of the man you were pretending to be.
And that growth rarely comes from light and love.
It usually comes from breaking down in a car park at 2am when no one’s watching, and realising -
This is it. I either die here, or I change.
You Don’t Have to Like It - But You Have to Respect It
This isn’t about spiritual bypassing.
I’m not here to glorify suffering or say “everything happens for a reason.”
Some pain is senseless. Brutal. Unjust.
But even then - it can shape you, if you let it.
Pain can sharpen your discernment.
Deepen your presence.
Crack your ego wide open.
Strip you of everything false so you can finally stand as something real.
But only if you’re willing to face it.
What Walking Through Pain Actually Looks Like
It’s not poetic.
It’s not Instagrammable.
It’s not a perfectly lit bath with a playlist called “Emotional Release.”
It’s:
Calling the friend you’ve avoided for months and saying “I need help.”
Walking into therapy when your pride says “you’ve got this.”
Sitting on the floor and breathing through the tears instead of numbing them.
Writing the truth instead of posting the performance.
Letting the rage come up without hurting anyone.
Screaming into the sea if you have to.
It’s messy. Raw. Animal.
And it’s the most honest thing you’ll ever do.
The Real-World Task: Pick One Pain and Enter It
Choose something you’ve been avoiding.
A breakup you never fully processed.
A mistake you’ve been punishing yourself for.
A sadness you’ve been carrying but never named.
Take an hour. Today.
Turn off your phone.
Grab a notebook.
Put your back against a tree, a wall, the floor - something solid.
Write what you’ve been too scared to say out loud.
Not for catharsis.
For clarity.
Let the pain speak.
And listen like your life depends on it.
Because it does.
Reflective Exercise: Making the Pain Sacred
What pain am I still carrying that I pretend I’m over?
What have I gained from avoiding it? What have I lost?
If this pain had a voice, what would it say to me?
What kind of man would I become if I made space for this pain instead of fighting it?
What might be waiting for me on the other side?
Write slowly. Write like you mean it.
Reading List:
When Things Fall Apart – Pema Chödrön
The Body Is the Barometer of the Soul – Annette Noontil
Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
The Smell of Rain on Dust – Martín Prechtel
How to Be an Adult in Relationships – David Richo
Pain may be the way.
Not forever - but for now.
Not because you deserve it,
but because it has something to give you that nothing else can.
Don’t waste it.
Walk through it.
Come out different.
We’re in this together.
