“Life is a journey of self-discovery. No matter how painful at times, every experience brings us closer to our True Self.”
-Mada Eliza Dalian
As a kid, I often wondered why many of the adults around me were so burdened and inflicted with “bad things that happened” to them. I could not understand why these people seemed so unlucky? I had no awareness of what “pain” was about – in fact it made no sense at all.
I remember hearing of a tragic car accident in India in which many of our neighbouring family members had died together. I also recall, when our home went up in flames, and my mum cried helplessly…and an occasion when someone had come out of prison, a lot older and grayer than when he had been sent in…it all seemed so sad.
There was a fear around all of this, and even a sense of “its not fair”… Being a sensitive child I internalized all of this and buried the fear. I did not know as a child that I could seek an explanation from my parents! I guess it just left me “feeling stuck” and contributed to my internal gloom.
I watched with dismay the tears that rolled when people died and a hopelessness was felt when I heard of a young man that had died of leukaemia, he lived higher up on our street, and another that had died of a drug overdose.
This fear stayed with me, and layer by layer, it crippled my ability to truly experience life with a risk free attitude. I had not realized that the fear lay dormant in my cells and was quietly sabotaging the decisions I was prepared to make in life.
Eventually I had to process it all in my adulthood and became a little wiser! Fortunately we are all capable of doing this.
As I explored life and the journey towards my own self discovery unfolded, concurrently it became my obligation and duty to explain to my own three children that this life we are participating in, is much more than that which is apparent.
I remember at a girls night-out a few months ago, a discussion that I had with my two daughters and we were talking about what they had gained most from my direction as a mother. They both paid tremendous compliments but the thing that struck me most was what my eldest included in her words.
She put a smile on my face by reminding me that even if bad things happen we need to look to see what that situation is teaching us…
Life is a school. My kids have seen my vulnerabilities and my tears, my tantrums and my jubilations…they have seen my fears in action and my efforts to overcome them too…after all when their dad received a cancer diagnosis back in 2012, they had fears of their own to overcome too.
They I hope have a small foundation to understand that there is no benefit in pain and suffering in itself…there is no benefit in enduring and prolonging the time in agony and misery – it is there to serve a purpose.
Suffering acts as the motivation to become an explorer of our own life, and thus it is a step on the path to finding who we truly are, beyond our bodies, thoughts and emotions – so that we might come to a glorious moment in which we come face to face with our “True Self”.
I am hopeful that the new generations may become open to this type of exploration earlier in their life, so that they might shortcut the need to go into too much suffering and pain!
