From Pain To Change

From Pain To Change

Fire! Fire! You can hear the scream coming from the next room as you come up out of a deep sleep. You jump out of bed and sprint to the kitchen to find a raging fire on the stove. What do you do? Would you yawn and go back to bed? Of course not! I'm hoping you would call the fire department, grab a fire extinguisher, or get the hell out of there. Regardless of the action that you take, you would take action. To not do anything and ignore that alarm, wouldn't make the fire go away. It would only give the fire more time to burn everything in site. And what if you just saw a little smoke? Would you let that fester until it became a raging fire? I wouldn't think so.

I've heard it said that the best catalyst for making a change is pain. And in my experience, this is true. If you aren't aware of a problem, you have no idea what to change, or how to go about making that change. But if you can just “feel” that something is wrong, that is an alarm going off letting you know that it is time for some self-exploration and to get to work on finding the source and making the change.

Sometimes the alarm sounds like the blaring call of a passing opportunity or as subtle as a waft of smoke in the distance calling you toward your true burning desire for purpose. In any case, the signal often comes in the form of an uneasy and unsettling sensation that something is amiss and needs action from you in order to be corrected.

But the longer that alarm goes off without you taking any action the worse the pain will become. So pain really isn't necessarily always a bad thing. It can serve as an alarm or a smoke signal, letting us know that it is time for change, or that we could be doing better for ourselves. Yet when many of us feel internal pain, or a sense of unease, we often fail to take action. I have some thoughts on why that is in another article that you can find here.

As an extreme example, I'll tell you a bit of my story. In my twenties I managed to get myself into a position where I couldn't stand going to work. I had worked for only three different companies in that period of time. The first company for 3 years, the second company for 4 years, and the third company for just a few months.

There would be brief periods where I would be excited about my job and work hard, but inevitably, long periods of time would come about where I felt tremendously unfulfilled. I had a metaphorical headache from banging my head against a wall. And no matter how many forms of motivation, affirmations, and self talk I tried, it was a battle that just could not be won. What was worse, was that it appeared that so many other people seemed to just be ok with the cubicle ridden lifestyle. So in addition to feeling unfulfilled, bored, and frustrated, I felt like a total outcast.

In the good spirit of trying to be fair to my surroundings and take responsibility for myself, I would constantly tell myself that it wasn't the job, it was me that was mis-aligned. So I stayed in my first two positions for considerably long periods of time trying to figure out how to be of better service to my customers, how to sell more, and how to provide more “value.”

What I didn't realize was that while I was on the right track looking inward at how I could make the situation better, I actually was not the right person for those situations. That became abundantly clear to me when I started my third job working for a web security company where I had an incredible manager who I got along with, fantastic co-workers, and was selling a phenomenal product. The problem was that I just was NOT happy.

And it wasn't my manager, the people I worked with, or what I was selling. It was the lifestyle that I was leading. I couldn't stand the fact that I was showing up where someone else said I had to show up, when they said to show up, and then left when they said I could leave. My income was limited by the plans put in place, and I even had to wear a head set while on the phone that felt like a real life plug in into the Matrix.

And worst of all, I felt like I had no PURPOSE!

It finally hit me that that was what had been plaguing me. My completely mundane and boring existence as a cog in the corporate wheel was killing me. Second by second the life was draining out of me, transmutating into money, and dripping into the bank account of the executives and owners of the company that I was working for. And I wasn't doing anything about it. All that time, the feelings of inadequacy, failure, and frustration, was my unconscious setting off blaring alarms that I was in the wrong place and living a life that was not in alignment with the Universe's best intentions for me.

The moment that I realized this brought with it a pang of such a sharp and stinging realization that I resolved to find my purpose and begin to live it. And that night when I got home, as a ceremonious reminder to myself, I wrote this incantation:

5/31/2008
“The time has come for a major change. I have reached the end of the path for this chapter of my life. It has come down to do or die. I can no longer endure the insulting and humiliating misery of perpetuating someone else's reality. I will no longer accept for myself the life of servitude that I have been living. My mission is to serve a higher purpose. Not some trivial corporate entity. I was put on this planet to make a difference, to carry a message. I will succeed in that mission, no matter what it takes.”

So I set out on a mission to identify my “Higher Purpose” and start living it. And once I made that decision I started to find tremendous resources and people who inspired and guided me toward this major part of my personal Transformation.

The point of this story is that for a long time I had a nagging suspicion that something wasn't right in my life. That I was doing something that just was not congruent with who I am. When the pain got great enough, I started to move. And as soon as I started to take action, I built a burning desire to change my life and my circumstances. Had I not made any moves toward change, I would still be living the same un-fulfilling and meaningless life that I was living before.

I happened to focus on career in this post, but this principle can apply to any part of life. Are you ignoring signs that any part of your life isn't really what you want? Maybe in your relationships or family life? Is there a dream that you may have given up on or a passion that you feel called to follow, but you just haven't gotten yourself to pursue it? It's worth thinking about.

So as you continue or begin your journey of personal Transformation, learn to pay attention to the signs. Are there any alarms going off in your mind? Is the Universe sending you smoke signals from off in the distance? If so, the time is now to put out the fire and make the changes necessary to start building the life that you truly desire.