No pain, no gain?

It's two years on (4/10/04) since I wrote this poem to myself:

"You don't know me
And I don't expect you to.
I hardly know myself
And what I see is little understood.

I realise the Mountain I have to climb
To lose my shackles,
And I'm scared.
Beating the retreat.

Wanting out of this trench,
A lift again out of the pit,
The mire,
Because I'm sinking.

I feel isolated and exposed.
Willing, yet unable to be vulnerable.
Lost in a fog of truth, truly,
As I perceive and deceive in turn.

To my shame
Pretense consoles only momentarily,
Before loathing ushers in.
Who am I kidding? Yeah, me.

Is pain a numbing ache, or lack of it?
Desperate and afraid,
I grope for freedom,
And the whole of the Moon.

Dare I unfold and to whom,
When I can barely cope as it is?
And who will journey with me?
No one, of course.

Mine is the distinction.
Mine is the depths from which to rise.
Mine is the seam of gold.
What’s mine is yours – still want to know me?"

It's good to look back - I did the same in September when I first began to blog - you can check that out in the archives - and know how far I have travelled :o)

The line about pain has come up in conversation often - "Is pain a numbing ache, or lack of it?"

Sometimes we feel pain acutely (whether it be physical, emotional or psychological) and other times we are anaesthetised to our own pain - we erect barriers or develop techniques to ignore it.

For instance, once in a while I feel terribly ill with headache /stomach ache and realise that I have been working and playing too hard without sufficient rest. I am forced to bed because I feel so awful.

But in recent times, as I travel back and forth through my history, I realise that issues have lain dormant within the foundations of my soul. Mining those brings new experiences of pain, but also of release and healing. No pain, no gain - you bet!

I believe that times of evaluation and questioning (such as mid-life crisis, significant birthdays / events etc) are when we consider our lives to date and know we want the next half, or 5 / 10 / 20 years to be different... better? I hope to encourage you and others to seize moments of revelation, when they trot by, to look at your 'stuff'.

The choice comes when we (you!) have to work out what to do next to effect change?

"And who will journey with me? No one, of course."

That's not to say that others won't be supportive, but there isn't another person that can travel my road (like we could hire someone to do it for us!) only I can. That journey is distinctly and uniquely mine. Only I can refine gold from the rockiness of my past and discover the 'me' that was meant to be.