The pain is the price you pay to be stronger tomorrow than you are today

HeartSupport Support
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Whats up friends?

Back in ~2013 when I first started being a part of HeartSupport I had already gone through several lifetimes of hell and found respite through the music that bands like August Burns Red, For Today, and Haste The Day were putting out.

The music helped me survive and HeartSupport was a critical factor in this.

In fact, I still turn to music to help me push through things. The energy and the message through a lot of this music provides a cathartic type of healing that reminds me that I CAN make it through.

A lot of us experience tremendous amounts of pain in our life and often we seek to run away from it.

Running away from the pain is completely natural as it’s something that we don’t want to feel, but through my 30 laps around the sun, I’ve come to understand that accepting the pain and even leaning into it can teach us A LOT about life and about ourselves.

For example, the last couple of years have been tremendously difficult for me as I went through a very ugly divorce where I found out my wife was having an extramarital affair. There’s several layers of pain and betrayal that I experienced that caused a lot of other things in my life to fall apart.

In fact, it ultimately lead me to hit genuine rock bottom - I thought to myself, what’s the point of living.

But this where the beauty of pain became apparent to me.

even though I had basically lost everything, I started sitting with the emotions and pain that resided in me and started listening to what they had to say to me.

I ultimately started leaning into this type of self discovery and self healing and found I was able to accept what had happened and it gave me a completely different perspective on life. Why I’m here, why I had to go through so much pain, etc.

Pain is indiscriminate. It doesn’t matter how much money you have, how good looking you are, what race or religion you are. It hits everyone.

The difference is what we do with that pain.

When it comes down to it, all the pain I had gone through (this specific event and all other things in my life) was so I could live the life I truly wanted, that I dreamt of.

It taught me not to be afraid to walk through the inferno for what I deserve exists on the other side of pain.

It also enabled me to realize that I can use my experience to in turn help others who may be experiencing troubles themselves. This, by proxy, develops a positive feedback loop that increases healing.

If you’re going through any type of pain, I encourage you to ask yourself, “what can I learn from this?”

There’s hidden meaning in everything we experience in life and pain is one of the most profound teachers that helps us grow into the person we are ultimately meant to be.

Instead of running from your pain, try facing it and accepting it as a natural part of growth that is present in everything in the Universe.

Let this add to your determination to keep going and to hold steadfast through your struggles.

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Thank you for sharing this. What a great story!

Pain teaches us lessons. If you never touched a hot pan, you wouldn’t know not to touch it, and it would be a blind spot in your wisdom. We can use our pain to figure out what we want out of life, and to burn away things that are bad for us. I know I wouldn’t have fallen in love with my wife if I hadn’t gone through the painful breakups I did, nor would I appreciate my career and my aptitude if I hadn’t struggled so hard in college.

My pastor said something some time ago that has stuck with me: “When you’re in a valley, all you can see is the valley.” The best thing we can hope for is that our present pain brings us something better; otherwise, what’s the point of all the pain? It will leave scars, and it may still hurt sometimes, but who would we be without our experiences?

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YOOO this song perfectly captures the thoughts I was having. Thank you for sharing as this is going straight into my motivational metal playlist!

“I know I wouldn’t have fallen in love with my wife if I hadn’t gone through the painful breakups I did, nor would I appreciate my career and my aptitude if I hadn’t struggled so hard in college.” - Seriously, looking back we can really begin to appreciate what our journey has taught us. I think it’s super important, though challenging, to bare this in mind as we actively go through pain." I also think what you said here should be shared more broadly on this platform as a lot of HS members come here struggling with things related to this.

Your pastor sounds like a very wise person… love that and will keep this close to heart as I continue on my path.

thanks for sharing, friend!

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From: ManekiNeko

music really does speak so deeply. Underoath gave me so much hope when I was going through so many dark places. There’s a song they Marie recently released that makes me feel everything I’m reading through your post.

pushing past the limits of pain and having that hindsight is just amazing. In the moment it’s raw and so incredibly painful. It gives us a greater empathy and understanding. It reveals in us the strength we have.

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From: The Blind Ash

I am reclaimer, Thank you for this wise insight. I very much agree finding that good in the bad can be hard but in the end it can be very worth it. Personally I have always found that fighting to continue and finding your own way through is a key to finding ourselves. I personally know that had I not experienced my own trauma’s and such I would not be the strong indepentant person I am today. The battles I have faught have helped guide me to being me. I hope that you can continue to share such wonderful insight. Thank you for being you and sharing these things. Hold fast Ash

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Thank you for sharing your knowledge. I’m glad to hear you are in a better place now and you bring up some great points, it’s important to experience pain and process it but I also feel like some situations that cause pain do not make us stronger. I’ve had many of these situations. Some people don’t have the same capabilities to do something with their pain. It’s like the lyrics from BMTH that go “what doesn’t kill you, makes you wish you were dead”. I’m not pointing this out to invalidate your or anyone else’s views- I agree we should feel pain and try to learn from it-but some situations are just so bad, that I feel offended when someone says something like adversity makes us stronger. I’m point this out to make people aware of how some of us feel and to increase empathy.

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I love finding out the music that really inspired / helped other people. Underoath has been around for a while and I love how they keep going. Their song too bright to see, too loud to hear always would get put me in such a completive state. I’m certainly going to listen to the song you shared! Thank you Neko!!

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I appreciate you, The Blind Ash! You’re right - if it weren’t for the hard times, I wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to grow into the person I am today. It sucks to go through a lot of the time, but a lot of the time, it’s just a hill we must surmount!

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I absolutely love that you bring this point up. I do agree that some things that some of us go through can do much to completely destroy a person - there is a term called post traumatic growth (which is what I’m leaning into) where people literally grow and improve as a result of trauma they encountered.

But the opposite is also true, as you point out. It is indeed important to consider this to be more empathetic to those on their own journey and to ultimately understand that my perception and the way I perceive life and how life happens to me is only in my head. That the same is true for the person next to me and that it’s critically important to understand this as to be a better human being for others.

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