This took me a really long time to write. It's still not perfect and there's still a lot I can't write because there's still so much I don't know, but I wanted to put down the things I did. They are as follows:
1. There is a difference between good pain (sensation) and bad pain (just pain)
2. Both are important
3. Telling the difference between them is just as important.
3. Telling the difference between them is just as important.
Growing up in an ultra orthodox, Catholic family, the concept of "no pain, no gain" was drilled into me from a very early age. I was shown crucifixes, narratives of the purest humility, icons of complete martyrdom, and was told this was what true holiness--excellence--looked like. Outside of the realm of religion, my mother shook her head at women who'd chosen not to have children, calling them selfish, and artists who'd chosen quit their day jobs, thinking them crazy. She'd point to my father and tell my siblings and me how honorable he was, how he had been working since he was 14 and hadn't ever stopped. She'd point to St. Therese the Little Flower and sing praises of how she'd surrendered ownership of everything of hers down to her handkerchief at the age of 19. She'd tell me how glad she was to have so many children so that all of us could grow up knowing "it's not all about you."
I'm sure anyone who grew up in any kind of religious family can relate.
And it wasn't all crucifixes and crowns of thorns . My mother emphasized that God loved my siblings and me. She said He wanted us to be happy. She encouraged me to write and draw to my hearts content. She read Harry Potter to my brother and me when everyone in our community was denouncing it as the work of Satan. She bought me a CD set of Japanese lessons when I decided I wanted to move to Japan and be a manga artist (never happened, but she supported me anyway.). She was a great mom.
But even in her support of my art, there were conditions and concerns. She'd wrinkle her forehead whenever my stories got too dark or violent. She'd sigh in exasperation whenever I insisted on using words she didn't like. As I got older, she started pushing me to pursue marketing and public relations fields. (her logic in this was to go where the money was, which wasn't necessarily wrong, but still wasn't right for me.)
There was always obligation. Always sacrifice. Always guilt.
As I grew, these scruples extended to all areas of my life: relationships (everything was my fault), school (I wasn't smart enough), jobs (I didn't work hard enough), even my aspirations and goals (I wanted too much).
Eventually, I got to university and I was miserable. I'd followed my best friend into a small business school in the hopes that it would make me more like her--practical, organized, patient--and less like me--emotional, untidy, passionate. It didn't. It just made me more aware of how impractical, immature, and utterly unprepared I was for the real world because I had no idea who I was half the time. In the half of time that I did, I had no idea why I had any business existing. Still, I went along, because I'm deathly afraid of change and quitting is a mortal sin.
In an attempt to hasten the transformation and forego any appraisals of my "you'll starve in the streets" major, I got a part-time job in the school's A.V. department and spent 20 hours a week fumbling with wires and stumbling through answers to technology questions I seldom knew.
Fortunately, once I got over the culture shock (people actually talked to each other there!), I found relief in my classwork (short stories, poems, literary essays) and my classmates (authors, poets, glorious nerds). This is not to say I didn't groan just as loudly as everybody else in the room when the professor assigned the 15-20 page term papers. I groaned, cussed, and sighed entire cities worth of frustration as I drafted and re-drafted and re-re-drafted those ungodly essays, but once I got into my groove, there was nothing that could take my attention away from it. I reached peaks of elation those late nights in the computer lab.
And that was my Sensation, my Good Pain. No matter how hungry or tired or lonely I felt, once I got past the initial grumblings, I was golden. I could have stayed up all night writing.
My Bad Pain was everything else: the angry eye rolls customers gave me when they knew I had no idea what I was talking about, the "and?" my mother asked me whenever I told her all I wanted to do was write, the sick feeling in my gut whenever I looked up careers in marketing. It was my soul telling me to stop the same way your body tells you to stop whenever you attempt a headstand and you don't have the balance or core strength for it.
And that is the difference: Good Pain is a dull ache, a challenge, a grind. It's building muscles and being sore afterwards. It's waking up ungodly early, commuting to a rigorous job, and coming home exhausted at the end of the day. It's what keeps us alive--what makes us alive.
Bad Pain, on the other hand, is sharp, insistent, and all-consuming. It's the tearing of skin and muscle, the shattering of a bone. At the least, it's a toe pinched in a door. It's the emptiness of being with a lover you haven't loved in years, the sickness of working at tasks you can't stand with people you can't stand. In short, a warning. A stop sign.
We need access to both these feelings. How else would we know what was right for us? Or wrong for us?
No one can tell us. They can advise and guide and argue, but they cannot tell because they do not know--even if they think they do.
Although Catholicism doesn't focus on it, even the Saints had to pick their paths. When St. Therese the Little Flower felt called to join the Carmelite Order, everyone from the priest-director of the Convent to the bishop tried to dissuade her,to convince her to wait until she was twenty-one, but she wanted it so bad she went to the Pope. She went after it, not just because of what God wanted for her, but what she wanted for herself.
We must push ourselves, friends, but never hurt ourselves. Let's not compare one another. Let's not compare paths. We already know what's right for us deep down--we might not always know what it looks like, but we know what it's supposed to feel like. At the very least, we know how it's not supposed to feel.
So, friends, even if we can't always be ourselves, let's at least always listen to Ourselves.
Peace.
I'm sure anyone who grew up in any kind of religious family can relate.
And it wasn't all crucifixes and crowns of thorns . My mother emphasized that God loved my siblings and me. She said He wanted us to be happy. She encouraged me to write and draw to my hearts content. She read Harry Potter to my brother and me when everyone in our community was denouncing it as the work of Satan. She bought me a CD set of Japanese lessons when I decided I wanted to move to Japan and be a manga artist (never happened, but she supported me anyway.). She was a great mom.
But even in her support of my art, there were conditions and concerns. She'd wrinkle her forehead whenever my stories got too dark or violent. She'd sigh in exasperation whenever I insisted on using words she didn't like. As I got older, she started pushing me to pursue marketing and public relations fields. (her logic in this was to go where the money was, which wasn't necessarily wrong, but still wasn't right for me.)
There was always obligation. Always sacrifice. Always guilt.
As I grew, these scruples extended to all areas of my life: relationships (everything was my fault), school (I wasn't smart enough), jobs (I didn't work hard enough), even my aspirations and goals (I wanted too much).
Eventually, I got to university and I was miserable. I'd followed my best friend into a small business school in the hopes that it would make me more like her--practical, organized, patient--and less like me--emotional, untidy, passionate. It didn't. It just made me more aware of how impractical, immature, and utterly unprepared I was for the real world because I had no idea who I was half the time. In the half of time that I did, I had no idea why I had any business existing. Still, I went along, because I'm deathly afraid of change and quitting is a mortal sin.
In an attempt to hasten the transformation and forego any appraisals of my "you'll starve in the streets" major, I got a part-time job in the school's A.V. department and spent 20 hours a week fumbling with wires and stumbling through answers to technology questions I seldom knew.
Fortunately, once I got over the culture shock (people actually talked to each other there!), I found relief in my classwork (short stories, poems, literary essays) and my classmates (authors, poets, glorious nerds). This is not to say I didn't groan just as loudly as everybody else in the room when the professor assigned the 15-20 page term papers. I groaned, cussed, and sighed entire cities worth of frustration as I drafted and re-drafted and re-re-drafted those ungodly essays, but once I got into my groove, there was nothing that could take my attention away from it. I reached peaks of elation those late nights in the computer lab.
And that was my Sensation, my Good Pain. No matter how hungry or tired or lonely I felt, once I got past the initial grumblings, I was golden. I could have stayed up all night writing.
My Bad Pain was everything else: the angry eye rolls customers gave me when they knew I had no idea what I was talking about, the "and?" my mother asked me whenever I told her all I wanted to do was write, the sick feeling in my gut whenever I looked up careers in marketing. It was my soul telling me to stop the same way your body tells you to stop whenever you attempt a headstand and you don't have the balance or core strength for it.
 |
| Imagine putting all your body weight on your neck in this pose. Ouch |
And that is the difference: Good Pain is a dull ache, a challenge, a grind. It's building muscles and being sore afterwards. It's waking up ungodly early, commuting to a rigorous job, and coming home exhausted at the end of the day. It's what keeps us alive--what makes us alive.
Bad Pain, on the other hand, is sharp, insistent, and all-consuming. It's the tearing of skin and muscle, the shattering of a bone. At the least, it's a toe pinched in a door. It's the emptiness of being with a lover you haven't loved in years, the sickness of working at tasks you can't stand with people you can't stand. In short, a warning. A stop sign.
We need access to both these feelings. How else would we know what was right for us? Or wrong for us?
No one can tell us. They can advise and guide and argue, but they cannot tell because they do not know--even if they think they do.
Although Catholicism doesn't focus on it, even the Saints had to pick their paths. When St. Therese the Little Flower felt called to join the Carmelite Order, everyone from the priest-director of the Convent to the bishop tried to dissuade her,to convince her to wait until she was twenty-one, but she wanted it so bad she went to the Pope. She went after it, not just because of what God wanted for her, but what she wanted for herself.
We must push ourselves, friends, but never hurt ourselves. Let's not compare one another. Let's not compare paths. We already know what's right for us deep down--we might not always know what it looks like, but we know what it's supposed to feel like. At the very least, we know how it's not supposed to feel.
So, friends, even if we can't always be ourselves, let's at least always listen to Ourselves.
Peace.
Belinda
