2002 - Revised January 2008

“It hurts to be beautiful!” was my mom’s favorite comeback to tearful whining as she tweezed the hairs from my twelve-year-old forehead.  “Ouch Mom!  Do you have to pluck so hard?  Why do I need thin eye brows anyway?”  Of course I already knew the answer, but why did I care if I resembled Groucho Marx?  I was a kid and into football and sports.  The unibrow worked fine for me at the time, as well as straight, stringy hair she would twist around wire curlers that pulled and tugged at my scalp when unraveled.  My final lament was, “If it hurts to be beautiful, then I want to stay ugly!”   

As a teenager, I learned how to do my own plucking and realized; the more you do it, the less it hurt, especially when I had control over the tweezers.  Perhaps looking beautiful and feeling good about my appearance became more important as I developed into a woman, or moreover, I began to understand that the tremendous outcome was worth a small amount of hurting.  Still, the expression stuck with me and planted a deep seed that would flourish throughout every aspect of my persona, straight through to this day.  In order to expand in any facet of your life, you need to feel discomfort first, hence the term ‘growing pains’.  If not, there would be no need for forward movement, and complacency would take hold.

Some people are afraid of pain.  They run from it, even if the outcome could bring positive change.  I, on the other hand, run to pain, but not because I am a masochist.   Instead, I am desirous of positive growth, and I have learned that every new and potentially hurtful experience can produce it, so I am eager to keep growing.  Are all growth experiences painful?  They don’t have to be, but most of us perceive them that way and it is what has been ingrained in us since birth.  After all, wasn’t coming out of the womb the ultimate painful “growth experience?”  As children, even when we had someone to help us ward off a potentially hurtful incident, did we always take the advice or follow directions?    

I was only about six or seven when my mother warned me not to go near an electrical outlet, but it looked like a great place to stick a metal barrette and you know what?  I never tried that again!  In all my adolescent years, it seemed that most of my lessons were attached to pain, so it was natural to think synonymously of the two.  At some point I must have taken a definitive stand and said, “If I want to continue my positive journey, it will lead me down a path of absolute growth, but it will most probably hurt.  Hmmm, I think I want to go anyway.”  It wasn’t until recently though, that I realized there was another side of this scenario that I could view. 

Most of us understand how a painful experience can bring us a positive outcome, but why do we almost always think of negative experiences as being painful?  I can go back ten years and relive a hurtful event in my mind and learn from it, even if I didn’t learn anything at the time.  Doesn’t that change it instantly from negative to positive?  I can go into the future and tell myself that when this situation arises again, I will know what to do.  Doesn’t that mean that I don’t have to be afraid of the future and that I have prevented an episode from being a negative one?  But even better, I can be in the “Now” or present and accept that every single pain and hurt I am encountering right this second can be teaching me something.  Therefore don’t I perceive whatever it is that I am going through as a lesson instead of a “nightmare”?  Once again, doesn’t that make the “pain” or negative, into a positive? The best part about understanding the growth process is in knowing that we can accept our lessons as soon as we acknowledge them.  In the split second that we decide, ‘this is a not bad thing, it is good’, we change our perception and the energy surrounding it.

How we think about our daily lives can suggest the difference between surviving and thriving.  It can also change our minds about whether it is painful or “growthful”.   In yoga, I continuously go beyond the twinges, aches and Charlie horses in my muscles to get to the next level in my practice.  In doing this for so long I have come to find that those muscle pains are not dangerous, but instead a signal that my body needs to let go in order to go deeper.  The more I stretch and extend those muscles, the further into the pose I will eventually get.  So when I feel that intense pulling, I am grateful and I breathe through it, allowing for the release.  By acknowledging that it is not a harmful hurt but instead a necessary sensation I have to feel to get my body past its current limits, the “pain” immediately stops and my mind now recognizes it as a positive challenge I can go beyond.

Dealing with pain and adversity inspired many moments of personal awareness.  In the past, when I doubted my ability to achieve goals because of negative events that were thrown my way, the truth was always revealed to me:  Losing a job, divorce, the death of my father and the ending of love relationships, all led to extreme and profound development and eventual happiness.  These “negative” episodes were necessary to clear the path for my dreams to come to fruition and that reality, inculcated consistently offers proof that a greater power and energy is working in my life.  That makes it so much easier to accept whatever is happening at any given moment.  In my mind, feeling pain went from an ‘ugh’ to an ‘ah ha!” and became a sign that there would soon be tremendous headway made on my journey.

When pain or fear of pain strikes, we have to look beyond it and remember our goals. Of course, while in the midst and throws of turmoil, it is probably the most difficult time to remember to hold on, but that is when we need to the most!  The reality we perceive in our lives is not based on a painful perception we may feel at any given moment.  Instead, reality is based on our inner goals and intentions, or otherwise put, the direction our soul is taking us.  When we hold onto that, we can endure anything. 

So my mom was right, as she always is.  Sometimes it does hurt to be beautiful, but the outcome is well worth it!  When any twinge of discomfort arises, tell yourself to breathe through it, then welcome your challenges and “pluck” the lesson right out of them.  Instead of running away, run towards the pain and then allow yourself to go beyond.  That is when you realize immense change and growth.  That is when you really begin to embrace the incredible journey you’ve put yourself on. 

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