The Art of Redirecting Pain

The Art of Redirecting Pain

It is almost impossible to avoid emotional pain in life. We can approach relationships, no matter how carefully and cautiously, we can not control someone else’s choices, loyalty, opinions, greed, insecurities, projections, illusions, jealousy and actions. This might happen at work, where you study, in your personal life with partners, children, and sometimes sadly it will be the people that you trusted most to look out for your interests. It will be the people to whom you have sacrificed so much of your time and given them unconditional love, transparency and loyalty. Somewhere, somehow, people will tell you that they are going to do one thing, and turn around and do exactly the opposite.

And it will break your heart into pieces.

And you will not know what to do with the all consuming pain.

And you will play the tape of how it all went wrong over an over in your mind.

You will be confused, feel the blame, shame and you will hear them twisting your words and intent in an attempt to burn the field before you get there to tell your side of the story.

You will ask the why and how you have managed to let yourself down so much that you trusted this person more than yourself and you will even start to doubt and question your own judgement.

You will start to betray yourself.

I know, feeling that dark phase of feelings is hard, but in my mind, it is still better than completely putting a lid on the feelings in an attempt not to feel at all.

The following saying gives so much hope and it helps to take one a bit forward to taking control instead of succumbing to the effects of the pain.

If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.

Shane Koyczan

But what some people choose to do with it however, is to sit and wallow in the pain, to make it tea, to nurture it, to absorb and internalise it. Some of the best comeback stories in history, is stories about ambition, conflict and love, compassion, betrayal, and most of all, stories about people who were dealt a raw and undeserving hand and who found a way to be bigger than that. They chose to rise above the painful circumstances they were exposed to.  The truly great ones are those who decided to change from being a victim of other people’s dubious choices, to reinventing themselves to achieve things that way outshines any negativity and circumstances they were dealt.

Be your own hero. The best revenge is you stitching together a kick-ass life in contrast to the same old stuck places they will still occupy. You know that you never needed them, but that you made a choice to be in their life. Their betrayal was their loss, not yours. And more than all, trust people again, because all people are not those who betrayed you, and by distrusting the new people in your life, you will pull yourself back into the old patterns of hurt. And worse, you will inevitably start to hurt other people who has not hurt you, making you no better than the persons who betrayed you. Change the status quo and keep your side clean as much as you can.

Take back control of your life. Break the yokes of control they still have on your emotions. That does not mean the pain never existed. It just means you were strong enough to take control of those emotions and not allow it to take more of your life and emotional well being away.You are the hero of your own life. You are the guardian of your heart and you learned discernment in screening people’s intention.  It means: YOU WIN after experiencing such a terrible loss. The lesson is that you will now know yourself better, and that is always a win in my book.

Love and Moonlight,

Leonie