Avoiding Pain

All of us prefer feeling joy over feeling pain or sorrow. Not a single person I know has ever told me that they actually preferred feeling pain over feeling joy. But there’s a difference between preference and suppression or avoidance of what we experience emotionally. 

All of us – every single human being – is wired with the capacity to feel. To feel deeply. To feel intensely. To feel fiercely. There is a reason we are equipped with this skill to feel. Emotions serve us as a vital source of information and orientation in life. We simply cannot survive without them. All of them.

So, while I might prefer feeling joy over pain, suppressing or avoiding feeling pain or so-called negative emotions comes with a huge catch. ‘Cause here’s the thing: it is simply not possible to have the one without the other. We cannot armour ourselves against pain and shut ourselves out of feeling it without also shutting ourselves out of feeling joy, gratitude or deep connection.

If I close myself up, I am closing myself up for ANY emotion, positive OR negative. If I avoid feeling pain and sorrow, I ultimately also avoid feeling love, compassion, and deep connection. Towards myself, towards others, towards the world as a whole.

It might lead to a life lived without pain, but also to a life lived without fundamental joy, happiness, communion. It leads to a life lived in the shallow, in the grey…

So let us be brave and let us dare to feel. Everything.