Every problem we face, every painful experience we encounter puts us in touch with ourselves.  How we manage those experiences will determine whether we grow from them or are crippled by them.  Issues we refuse to deal with and changes that we need to make are often lifelong baggage for people.  Even the worst painful emotional experience can give us the opportunity to take control of who we can become.

Pain should make us grow.  You’ve heard the weight lifter’s slogan “No Pain, No Gain.”  Muscles need to be worked to enlarge and strengthen.  Did you know your bones work the same way and add density based on the stresses they are exposed to?  Lifting the remote to change the TV channel just won’t cut it.  When I used to teach police officers martial arts I often made a point to show them that the physical manipulations and application of pain was not to hurt but rather to give direction to the person’s behavior.  Movement in one direction by an arrestee would be facilitated by creating pain.  The person would naturally move in the direction to reduce pain, which was the direction the officer wanted (usually to the ground where handcuffs were applied) so the Judge could take over the process.  Pain is also a powerful teacher in light of the “direction” a life can go.  It is the essence of the criminal justice system, and to a large degree it works.  The Bible used pain in child rearing as a tool for growth in behavior.  The “rod” may not be your choice for getting your child’s attention, but consequence of some type is a necessary element of growth.  Painful consequence gets our attention…and if we pay attention to it we can make the choices in our lives that will expand our horizons and make us better people, whether we are talking about divorce, job loss, rejection by friends, death of loved ones, addiction experiences and a host of other things.

How do you relate to pain?  Do you get frustrated?  Do you just ignore the experience and wall it off somewhere in your mind?  Do you use substances to dull that emotional pain so you don’t have to think about it?  These unproductive escapist ways of dealing with emotional pain can’t help you grow.  In order to grow you must choose a positive point of view for your life.  Life is the way it is, what matters is the decision you make on how to cope with it.  In many ways “you get what you expect” in life.  If your expectations are positive, things often go that way.  The opposite is true for those with a bad attitude, and the worst often has an uncanny way of finding them.

Pay attention to the experience and internalize the lesson.  We often make the same mistakes and do the same stupid things that the lesson was supposed to teach us not to do.  Accept the value of having all those bad experiences, because generally you don’t grow without them.  Can you imagine yourself being tied up and not struggling to get free?  Are you expecting the good fairy to come and tap you with her wand to free you and make your life perfect?  Where there is no struggle, there is no progress.  Use the experience to your benefit.

Ultimately, you have to take responsibility for your own life and the choices you make.  Otherwise you wallow in your experiences and pity yourself as a victim for the rest of your life.  The world is not required to treat you fairly, so bad experiences will come.  As John Maxwell once said “A bend in the road is not the end of the road unless you fail to make the turn.”