Transmutation

	Pain is sacred. Just as Christ suffered on the cross, died and was reborn, so does pain offer us a chance for growth and renewal. Pain is a sign of healing. We instinctively try to avoid it, shove it down, numb it, blame others for it, etc., but only by going right through it can we learn the lesson it has to give. When we face our pain, our fear, we are baptized, initiated, consecrated, healed, renewed by it. We complete the hero’s journey. We release our karma. We up-level ourselves. The constant avoidance of pain robs us of all of this. In fact the fear of suffering causes more suffering than the actual suffering, if that makes sense. We go to great lengths to avoid facing our fear and our pain. We use every kind of band-aid and numbing agent we can imagine in order to avoid facing the root of the problem. We take drugs, we drink, we blame everyone and everything else, we consume food, products, services, supplements, we hide, we lash out. Anything to take the focus off the very the thing we need to focus on. Pain is a signal, a message, calling your attention to something that needs to be healed. We avoid heeding that call at all costs.  But in that pain lies our journey, the journey of our healing, the journey of our lives. Releasing resistance, surrendering to our fear and to our pain allows us to move through it, to discover a stronger version of ourselves. 

	We think of Heaven as a place where everything is perfect and good, and there is no evil or anything bad of any kind. But what if Heaven is actually a state of being where you accept all that is, the bad along with the good? When we fully understand our trauma is also our best gift, we are healed and redeemed. When we realize our suffering has purpose and meaning, we transmute it into grace. We turn pain into power. We turn fear into love. Jesus had to die on the cross to give his greatest gift. There has to be dark for there to be light. So then, maybe Heaven is not the absence of darkness but the making of peace with it.