Profound Wisdom Comes From Sitting With Your Pain

Profound wisdom comes from sitting with yourself through experiences where your whole being wants to flee.

I’ve been asked several times how did I get through 9 months on crutches, half that time spent in bed unable to move? What practices got me through and what did I learn?

Sometimes practices become just another distraction. Another “thing” to do. Another way to move instead of being still.

My ego sometimes perks up and wishes I could say I did something profound to heal, or I spent the time listening to tonnes of podcasts, reading great books and sorting out my life but the reality is I spent countless hours staring at the wall. Hours asking myself fundamental questions. Hours of just feeling the pain.

And there were times a voice would pop up saying “your wasting your time, go do something, study, learn, breath, move, sing, practice mantras” and that’s the thing - we constantly think that in order to make tracks in the world we have to learn or gain something that’s “out there”, when really it’s all “in here”.

It’s all right here.

So how did I get through? I sat, I sat and sat and sat with everything. I remained still when I desperately wanted to flee. When I desperately wanted out of my body, when I desperately didn’t want to feel the pain anymore I just kept sitting.

And eventually the urge to run lessens. And you realise you have the power to be with anything and any running would only be from yourself. And you get to know yourself on a deep level, in no way that a book, guru or outside “thing” could give you. So you stay, you learn and what you cultivate is profound wisdom that can only be gained through experience and sitting.

So if your in a world of pain what wisdom can I share with you? When your body starts squirming and your mind reaches for a distraction - remain still. Learn to sit comfortably without grasping outwards. Even for 5 minutes just sit with it. Observe the chaos within and just see what happens. In order to truly see who you are in the light, you must first go into the dark.

It takes practice just like everything, but eventually you will cultivate the power to be with yourself through anything. And how freeing is that?…