I’m not sure about the Opening before me. It doesn’t look very welcoming and may be difficult to enter.

Not All Alike

In this blog, we tend to look at Openings as positive gateways. They may offer challenges or mysteries, but we don’t tend to think of them as painful. If we did, it could make us wary of them. Openings, however, can be painful and we all likely have an example of one. It is the natural order of things in our world that challenge lies side-by-side with ease. Our acceptance of this enhances our perspective of life and our ability to navigate.

What is this concept of painful Openings? When an Opening is before us, it can be one that involves pain either before we enter or when we are entering it. Perhaps we must release something that really matters to us before we are ready to enter the Opening. Perhaps we see an Opening that is a radical departure from what we thought our life was going to be. We’re not sure we want to go where it beckons.

Certainly, we can choose not to enter an Opening. In this case, we are looking at Openings that we think we want to or should enter but we hesitate because to enter them we will experience some pain. The prospect of pain can stop us in our tracks., We don’t like suffering and often we are not prepared for it. Our society tries to protect us from pain. But pain is part of life and it can be a part of Openings too.

Opening To Something New

We may be facing an Opening that summons us to something new. In actuality, there may be little or no pain involved, however the prospect of something new causes us to anticipate pain. Pain has many dimensions – physical, emotional, mental and spiritual. All can be present in Openings. In order to grow, pain is sometimes involved. Pain is distressing. It causes us to withdraw. Pain must be healed and that leads to growth.

Fear is a big factor when we experience or face the prospect of pain. We are uncertain of what form it will take and what our experience will be. Sometimes fear magnifies the prospect of pain. Our mind runs away with it. That can happen as we face a potentially painful Opening. We may shrink back at the prospect and want to hide. Our fear can get the better of us and cloud our vision.

Our choice to enter an Opening that we fear asks for our courage. We must expand our vision to what the Opening may bring to us. We will need to muster our strength and find a way to deal with the prospect of pain. In doing so, we may find that the prospect of pain is not as daunting as we thought it would be. We may also look back and recognize that pain, in some instances, brought great things into our lives.