The Pain of Change

Posted on by Sen.



The mind is inherently afraid of pain of any form – be it physical pain or emotional pain.

The irony is that we go through a lot of pain in our life just to avoid facing a certain pain that we fear. For example, the fear of facing the pain of being rejected by our friends/partner keeps us from ever wanting to evolve into a more independent person, because you inherently know that when you evolve you will lose parts of your old reality that are no longer congruent with your evolved mindset.

The fear of loss is basically the fear of facing the “emotional pain” of the loss, and yet the truth of physical life is that change requires dissolution of the old for the birthing of the new, this includes losing old beliefs, mindsets, habits, behaviors, attitude, perspective, identity, friends, relationships, career, lifestyle etc – and this feeling of loss needs to be inevitably faced if you want to allow this change, that you inherently desire.

When you fear facing this pain you become stagnant. You have the free-will to resist change for yourself, at-least as long as the pain of being stuck becomes stronger than the pain of change.

Coming to a place of inner wholeness is a huge change from being in a place of enslavement to the mind and emotions. In order to come to this place of inner wholeness you would inevitably need to go through fears from the mind towards this change, plus you would need to go through the “cleansing” of your past store-up of negative energy (emotional energy) which entails that you allow these suppressed energies to come up so that they can be released – and the only way they can come up is if you become “fearlessly” allowing of facing them in your being, in your awareness; it’s a choice that you make (sometimes through exhaustion, thus giving up your struggle) and this choice after a while (say 30% into the release) no longer remains a choice because by then the release goes into auto mode, the detox just takes over until it finishes – scientifically this is because once you consciously become allowing you start losing your inner resistance and there comes a point, at around 30% of the release, when the resistance breaks away so much that the release takes over. This conscious allowing requires some fearlessness to face the negativity as it arises – facing the pain of it.

Moving into a higher dimension of living

Emotional pain constitutes close to 99% of our suffering in a physical life, physical pain is just 1% in most cases. When you are free of emotional influence you are free of 99% of your suffering, plus the unnecessary physical pain, manifested out of the emotional pain, is also avoided. However, to be free of emotional influence one needs to come to inner wholeness, and for that one needs to consciously allow all the emotional pain, and its associated mental fears, to be faced and seen through. When you “see through” a fear, it no longer has a grip on you and thus you can allow the associated emotional pain to be released – it’s the “fear” of facing this emotional pain prevents you from releasing it. For example, the fear of a break-up is just the fear of facing the pain of separation from someone you were attached to, and a lot of us don’t face this emotional pain even after the break-up, rather we just suppress it and immediately try to repair it by getting into another relationship – this emotional pain stays suppressed and keeps attracting situations that match this pain (law of attraction at work), and it’s actually a good thing because it allows you the opportunity, again and again, to finally release it by facing/allowing it.

Physicality on Earth is the perfect platform for your spirit/consciousness to grow in its understanding of itself because of the immense avenues of negativity/fear that are present here. The light knows itself through the dark, and, as a “consciousness” focused on Earth, you came here to understand yourself deeply, and grow in your self-realization, by exposing yourself to this environment that you knew was strife with avenues of negativity. You did not come to suffer (as an intention), you came here to know yourself, to grow, and evolve, by bringing awareness to the negativity and transmuting it within you to realize your freedom, to realize your true power. The platform of Earth has been your school for growth, possibly for several lifetimes, and there are conditions that you intended for yourself explicitly (before the birth of the physical body) for the growth they can induce in you, for your evolution towards a higher dimension of living.

Overcoming the fear of emotional pain is integral to your growth towards this higher dimension of living. If you want to believe the deal of 2012, it has been said that this year would be the culmination of a decent percentage of humans moving into this higher dimension of living, the beginning of a different level of consciousness on Earth. Hopefully, you understand that this higher dimension of living is just a natural unfolding of evolution and it’s not something “superior” or extra-ordinary. Another misconception is that in this higher dimension of living everyone will become “all loving” and that there will be no contrast/negativity – this is just a very “naïve”, and misguided, thinking. The truth is that there will always be contrast to work with, without contrast there is no growth – people who come to inner wholeness don’t just sit around in a blissed out state, singing hymns of joy, they have new contrasts to work with, new learning, new challenges, new growth potential to evolve towards. It’s just that, in this dimension of living, one is free of the “influence” of negativity and hence his/her movement is not at the mercy of emotional/mental resistance rather it’s a free, openly individualistic expression, and aligned with dynamic growth.

You made a choice towards evolution

This life-time, for you, could be the one that you choose for moving into a higher dimension of living. You don’t have to believe this perspective, but you actually paved the creation of certain situations (and events) for yourself even before you came forth into physicality, to ensure that they serve as a wake-up call for you towards your evolution – I am sure a lot of you can resonate with the “deja-vu” that you feel sometimes when a certain event happens, it’s as if you’ve lived it in your thought at some point; this is just a flash of memory of the plan you made for yourself before you came forth. I am not suggesting that your life is “pre-scripted”, it can’t be, because the moment you come into physicality you don’t consciously “recollect” the plans/intentions you made before you came forth, and hence you have the free-will to oppose, in many ways, and possibly thwart the intentions completely – however the intentions that you set forth have a momentum and they have a pull, and your opposition does create a lot of suffering in you. That’s why your life becomes automatically aligned when you start letting go of your struggle/fight.

In simple words, a lot of so-called negative events that you went through in your life, since your childhood, possibly starting with being born in a challenging family environment, are a part of the growth path you had set for yourself before you came forth. You also possibly made a few “contracts” with other streams of consciousnesses to work as your wake-up calls (people who create negativity in your life as a means for you to wake up), support systems, as well as soul mates. You don’t have to believe any this, and I admit I have no proof to the non-physical actions we undertake, it’s just that this perspective resonates as a truth for me, and possibly can resonate as a truth for you also, in your heart – something in you just knows this to be true. This understanding allows you to relinquish blame from a lot of people who served as a “wake up” call for you, along your life – family, friends, exes, bosses, spouses etc, knowing now that it was part of your growth path towards this higher dimension of living that you intended to evolve towards.

If all of this sounds like a lot of “other worldly” talk to you, then you can discard it – I am not here to debate the accuracy of what I am saying. I am just writing from my own resonance and it’s for you to sense if it resonates for you – if it doesn’t feel free to rubbish it, and move on, you are not obliged to believe anything neither do you have to put your faith on my understanding. For people, for whom this may resonate, it can serve the value of helping them release a lot of negativity about their past and understand the inherent positive growth that it was all aimed towards – to know that you have consciously chosen this path of growth for yourself is a huge revelation. I understand that without the events of negativity that took place in my life, and the emotional pain of it, I would never have ventured into understanding life more deeply.

Overcoming fear of emotional pain

The key to moving into this place of inner wholeness is to become fearless towards emotional pain. A lot of people, on this path of transition, cling to the bliss that they feel, now and then, after a release, and feel terrified every time a new cycle of emotional pain comes up to be released. They start wondering if they are doing something wrong. I’ve mentioned this in many of the previous posts – “stop clinging to the highs”, they will just be temporary until you finally come to a place of stability.

If you cling to the highs, you will always be fearful of the lows, and this fear will keep you from allowing a free release. So you need to let go of this mindset of asking – “I was in a positive place for a few weeks and then I don’t know how I attracted this negativity, what am I doing wrong?”. The negativity that came up was what you had not released yet, and it came up as a part of your growth towards stability. The question is – are you really free of the influence of negativity to the point when you don’t fear if it comes up? Until you are this free you are not really free, and have not yet come to a place of total allowing.

When you come to inner wholeness, towards the end of the release, one thing that becomes evident is that you are free of the influence of emotions – again “influence” is the key word, emotions are there but they don’t have the power to cloud your wisdom or resist your intended movement of growth. In this place, the emotional energy is low in intensity and has no real grip on your being. This allows you to be rooted in wisdom and your actions to be coming from a place of inspiration/inner-guidance rather than as a means to assuage the emotional pain temporarily. When we are dominated by emotions, our actions tend to come from a place of wanting to reduce the pressure of emotional pain and hence, most of the time, tend to be against our instinct for wisdom. The only way to be free of the hold of emotional energy is to see through it, consciously, by allowing it to arise freely without fearing it – there is a lot of past, and present, emotional pain that will come up in layers and phases, with a momentum, and all of it needs to be allowed before the release is done with.


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24 Comments

  1. rossana

    Sen i have found smoking marijuana moderately throughout this process of releasing the negativity to be so so helpful and make the process so much easier and understandable. It has actually made me look at this whole process of releasing the negativity with this innocent curiosity.

    Now I am by no means a heavy smoker but my question to you is what is your personal opinion on how often should a person like me smoke to help them gain nine insight.

    Currently I am doing it once a month ???

    1. Sen Post author

      You will have to take a call based on your own inspiration. The bottom line is that this process is about growing in inner stability which means you are free of the use of a “crutch”. So as long as the drug is not a crutch, and you are using the drug just for some temporary relaxation, to gain some perspective, it’s fine. Once a month seems totally fine. Personally, I’ve not tried any drugs, and hence can’t give you guidance from my personal experience with respect to your query.

  2. alchemista

    Hello Sen, I breathed a big sigh of relief when I read this. Well, my experience of ‘dejavu’ during major change phase was and continues to be very intense and consistent. In the beginning, I used to think that if I’ve been here before then what am I to do, and I wondered aloud and asked others if they feel it too. But, in truth it’s been this feeling of being here before or this ‘knowing’ that gave me the strength and courage amidst loss and drastic changes on all fronts in my life to embrace the change and go through with it. This knowing feeling that I signed up for this is what’s really helped me hang in there with all the fear, pain, and negativity arising. So thank you for reaffirming my feelings. Once again your words have a strong resonance with me and feels like its all making sense now and its all falling into place, and I’m beginning to wonder whether you’re an angel sent my way.

    1. Ehsan M.

      Beautiful…

  3. Valerie

    Hi Sen,

    I have been doing this emotional self-work very intensely for a year now, and I find your site really helps calm my very active mind and guide me through the stages of letting come up what needs to, experiencing and learning from the pain, and letting go. You provide a beautiful service sharing your experiences and deep insights and wisdom for free on this site, and I am very grateful.

    Thank you for being you and teaching us all so much.

    Warm regards,

    Valerie

  4. lekha

    Once again, a gem of an article. Thank you very much Sen

  5. David

    Dear Sen,

    You sure know when to write an article at just the right time, and I’m sure that I am not the only one who feels this way. Thank you for this timely reminder.

    1. Star

      Ditto to that.

  6. Pavlo

    This is simply my opinion, but there is a deep
    resonance in me which knows that this blog
    is a blueprint for the understanding of
    humanity, of life, the cosmos, but most importantly,
    it’s a blueprint for the well being of all of us who
    have suffered. You WILL get better but you must
    invest in the time and effort needed for true
    transformation to take place. True knowing
    will set you free and I’m living proof. My journey
    continues and I can feel knowledge growing
    In me at an exponential pace.

    Dear Sen, you may not feel this way but you
    indeed have a gift, just as life intended.

    My gratitude to you
    is profound beyond words.

    1. Alliswell

      I second that. Sen, you helped me change my life. Thank you!

  7. Star

    Sen,

    May I ask if guilt plays a role in bringing negative events into our lives for it to be understood and resolved? That is what I understand about karma (which has been so widely misinterpreted), that negative events that befall us are basically our guilt that pulls them into our lives for it to be faced. Would you say that guilt is the main ‘conductor’ that orchestrates our entire life script? Or not…..?

    And also, I think it helps to understand where fear originates from. Would it be right to say fear is the nature of the ignorant mind?

    1. Sen Post author

      Star, your experience of reality is totally based on whether your attitude towards constant growth or if it’s towards identification with negativity. Life is always beckoning you towards growth and it’s a never ending journey. Guilt is a mirror that can help you see aspects of you that need a growth – it could point towards you holding on to some limiting beliefs about life, it could point towards some hang ups you have about yourself, it could point towards a negative self-image you have about yourself, it could point towards a fear you are unwilling to face. Instead of being fixated on the guilt, you need to start bringing awareness towards the growth potential that this feeling is pointing towards. Of course, all forms of negativity, including guilt, come from an imbalance in your mind towards either its dark nature or towards its light nature, and it’s an indication towards coming to a balance – you can read this post Integrating your dark and light nature for more insight on this.

      Fear is a dimension in the mind, and by itself, fear is just an indicator towards growth in your awareness. The more understanding/awareness you have of life, the less likely you are to give in to the grip of your mind’s fears.

  8. Susan

    Dear Sen

    I also join these souls in gratitude and resonance to this inner voice which has been with me for some time now (at least in my awareness) and that calls out….remember who you truly are. It had been a while since I had heard it. I did today, absorbing what you wrote. My deepest thankfulness for reminding me. Gracias.

  9. Star

    Thanks for the reminder yet again, Sen 🙂

  10. bernard

    dont ever stop posting, u are saving so many lives out here.

  11. Gary Christiansen

    Sen, How do we know if we are just repeating the same old cycles but repeating them creatively different, in other words, our mind is playing games with us disguising new experiences to appear different when in reality it’s business as usual for the ego/mind.
    We, “Think” we are going to do this next thing in life differently but have once again been conned by our cunning mind to do it the same, even though we think we are doing things differently.
    Can the mind give the appearance that we are doing things from the heart but again, the mind is doing its con job of disguise?
    Can our mind con us into thinking that we are aware but in reality it’s just another mind game?

    1. Sen Post author

      Gary, the mind is highly limited in its strategies, and it doesn’t take long to really see through all the patterns inherent to your mind – all it takes is an open observation of your mind. The more you observe the more you see through its conditioning and fear patterns. Once you are quite clear about the mind’s patterns, you will no longer get pulled in to its thoughts – you will just be aware of it without getting identified. This is the state of the end of mind momentum. The way to do is to simply stay allowing of the mind, whenever you have the time to be with yourself – this conscious allowing will let you see the mind’s way of working, and also release its momentum because your awareness is not lost in it.

  12. suman

    Hi Sen,
    “The more you observe the more you see through its conditioning and fear patterns. Once you are quite clear about the mind’s patterns, you will no longer get pulled in to its thoughts – you will just be aware of it without getting identified. This is the state of the end of mind momentum”. According to your saying, now whenever i got a (new)negative thought of a particular kind , i am not pulled by it because i know the pattern of my mind. I know that this is a similar thought and not to get tensed. But the main thought of the same category is still not losing its grip on me. Is this the end of mind momentum or not?
    Please reply
    thanks
    suman

  13. Chow

    Sen,
    what about a desire to leave some people and friends, and move on? I’m not sure is it “real”. I mean, I feel I am just not a “match” with some old friends, I don’t enjoy their company and stories, I have different interests etc. But, where is compassion if I just leave? Some of people I know are in tough states of being, am I just running away from them? I don’t want to live in a world where no one helps no one, and we just move from people who give us little discomfort. And I want to move and leave…where exactly? Where do I want to go? I feel guilt to admit I actually don’t like them. Sometimes it feels demonic. I guess I need to be honest with myself, am I running because I feel I am “better” or… or maybe the feeling is true, and legitimate, we are just no longer “connected”, and then mind came up with all these stories and fears? I mean, isn’t a point in “being a buddha” to be able to be with anyone? No one can touch you, you are full in “inner aloneness”? Or is it an idealistic view with no reality – we all have preferences and people we feel more connected or less connected?

  14. Mark

    Dear Sen,

    God bless you. I love this article. this is the 2nd time i read this article, this time brings light to me. I know my state right now and what is happening with all this negativity, i havent totally free from the influence yet, but soon i will. And sometimes i am kind of waiting for the negativity while sometimes i still fear it. Thank you Sen, for the light that you gave to me.

    Regards

  15. X

    Hi Sen,

    it might surprise you about what i am writing.. but i am facing very difficulty to acknowledge and accept and look at things around me.. that i used to be soo familier with earlier .. always a kind of withdrawal feeling…. its like i want to move forward.. inspite of having tons of understanding,knowing, experience n intelleclualization .. …. but at this point nothing is helping me.. apart from me allowing myself to feel defended.. or offended.. i find myself in this condition for having crossed certain social norms. .. n boundries.. I am facing a difficultly to face the world around me…. every one around me are critizing me and are unhappy about me…… it can sound silly to the reader’s about how could you allow this to happen to your self being aware ..but yes.. i am in this position.. having done my best in my position for all that i could stand for in life.. STILL I AM HERE.. … ..

    all my courage , strenght, will power, understanding,…. everything is vanised.. just that i am there…. I feel very much shaken up from inside..i dont know what to do.. n how to .. i am not able to reassure myself….

    I don’t know how to restore myself.. it feels very empty.. n fleeting.

    Pls. help….

    1. Anonymous

      X,

      You are on the right track, this is just part of what happens as you learn to stand with your own integrity and authenticity. Once you achieve a firm grounding with yourself you can live your own way whilst still respecting the social norms of society and of others. For now just continue to go as you have been. If you feel empty it is fine, the feeling of being empty can be very uncomfortable to the mind. But if you look at it more closely the “feeling” of emptiness is still mind play. The “feeling” of emptiness occurs within emptiness itself. I remember being at this stage, with this “feeling” of emptiness in my mind. It felt in a way peaceful, but a boring peace, unentertaining, and even uncomfotable to the mind.

      The more you approach inner wholeness you will notice a peace that is rather alive instead of boring.

      By stating you don’t know how to restore yourself, this is truly a sign that there is an evolution. This part involves allowing your old ways of being to dissapear. You can’t go backwards, you are too aware for that now. Allow the old ways of being to disappear as you have been by just being self aware. As it increases you will see more things that you had strong identification with pop up in the awareness to also fleet away (if they need to).

      Once this process is over with, there is a sense of alive peace and enjoyment to life. Also, you can respect society and others while still having your own individual qualities. But again, the process of release has to happen before you can really focus on what Sen calls the “return of focus”.

      Finally, if you wish to test out something (and it’s wise to do so) feel free to. This can even include acting in a different manner than what is considered a social norm just for the pure experience of it.

    2. X

      Hi Anonymous,
      Am I really on the right track? I want to share honestly what I am going through. I feel a strong force take over me by hitting me from one side, left part of me and on the other side it feels like slow dissolution of “identification” with objects, people, in mind relatively there is NO “strength or force” with which I can hold some idea or concept in the mind.

      I am aware of it. But I can no longer hold it as I used to hold it earlier.

      It’s like an exploration more in unknown domain. Like being in this area you don’t know that you don’t know (totally bind and you need to explore being here, i am still not able to figure out what it is) and what I know, no more hold the same significance as it used to be earlier..

      “Knowing” all these still makes no difference because I cannot derive anything from this also..

      The ‘plane or domain’ of knowing, understanding.. have lost there grip. I am not able to derive from this domain. Feels like I have come too far to be here but still life is going as if I am just a watcher of my own life and it’s just passing next to me. But at some critical moments I see there is some shift when I really get “present-aware”. Being aware, the authentic seeing of what it is (instead of trying to see what I would like to see it as I want to fall in SYNC with life, be aligned with life energy, be with one with it and flow in an effortless way and live an authentic life.

    3. Anonymous

      X,

      I say you are on the right track because as you showed in your first comment there are things that are happening in your reality, which is a sign of release and you have the ability to let things that arise be (even though it may be a confusing time). Another indication of being on the right track is that you are to the point where you realize you can’t really hold onto anything because it is no longer possible to live in that manner, and thus you understand there is no reverse. This includes the fact that you see even “knowings” have lost their grip. It is far better to just be open to reality because you won’t ever 100% be able to be certain if you are right. If you really want to be in sync with life, it requires you to be non-resistant and open to what arises and thus not giving forth a vibe of lack, need or desperation. The irony is that life actually brings in some synchronous solutions when needed when you aren’t hoping/holding on/expecting it to. If you come from a place of hoping/holding on/expectation that’s what you will see attracted into your reality. However, when you are living on your own independence you begin to see the support from life come in when appropriate.

      On a separate note, you mentioned in your first post about people being unhappy with you, etc. It may be true that you can allow these people to be unhappy with you and not feel anything, but there is a part of the process where you have to learn to respect others’ feelings as well. It is, as you mentioned, important to be able to not feel terrible from others’ reactions towards you, so that you can make conscious decisions. The deal here is being affected by people can make you cocky in a certain way and make it look like you are holding some position of being better than them because nothing affects you anymore (I went through this as well). I think you have a good bit of inner freedom already (judging from your posts). See if you can use this freedom to make a conscious choice to care for these people and understand their minds (it can actually be a pretty fun thing), rather than just trying not to be affected by them. Remember this is not like before where you may automatically feel some need for you must keep people happy (or guilt for not doing so), but a conscious choice to really consider what others are feeling. You can read more about this here: http://www.calmdownmind.com/a-lesson-in-humility/

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