''You can't outsource your pain.''

 -''Yes, he said and then continued ''but you can't outsource your pain''.

Wow, I thought, that's a cracker of statement.

(Outsourcing, as in passing on one's task to someone else.)

Ever since my son made that statement a week ago I have been 

 wrestling with that thought. What else can't we outsource?

Memories? How we feel about and view ourselves? 

How we feel about and view others?

Hmmm, can our own emotional well-being be ''outsourced'' to others?

Well, how about blame?

Not exactly outsourcing, but.... by blaming someone else

for an outcome we may not be happy with, we ''remove'' the

responsibility and accountability from belonging with us.

''What do you mean??? My fault??You started it!!!''

''I only posted that because someone told me that you

had posted lies about me on your site yesterday.''

Etc. etc.

As I view it however, blaming someone else or others for

how we feel we basically resign ourselves to not being in

charge of our own emotional wellbeing. It may perhaps be easier

to assign blame rather than to examine our own behaviours,

but it can also keep us stuck in a mindset that prevents us

from finding new and more helpful ways of dealing

with difficult situations and emotions.

As much as we may want to ''outsource'' suffering and

pain, heartache and disappointment, what if hidden

within such experiences there are also invaluable ''treasures''?

According to some recent research, psychologists have

become aware of a phenomenon called ''post-traumatic growth''.

Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun discovered through

doing a large number of interviews with people who had suffered

serious traumatic life-events, that for many of them

their experiences became a powerful spur for personal development.

According to Tedeschi and Calhoun, their (the people interviewed)

suffering lead them to a ''deeper level of awareness''.

Pain comes in many different varieties; acute, chronic, physical,

emotional, psychosomatic, etc. etc.

None of us like it, 

 most of us probably try to escape it,

numb it, make it go away, so if I was to suggest that pain

has the potential to be a really good ''teacher'',

you may possibly think me nuts.

Some years ago I came up with this:

 ''Joy is a friend, but pain is a teacher''.

I think that perhaps it popped in to my head because

pain has helped me to gain a deeper understanding of

compassion, patience, long-suffering and the value of

mindfulness.

Loading my car one day with all my music equipment,

I managed to tear all the ligaments and muscles in my lower

back. The sound of the tearing was awful and as I collapsed

on the floor in agony, I knew that I had done some serious damage.

(The pain was actually so severe it temporarily blinded me.)

Long story short; After months of pain relief injections and

staying in bed, physio and a bunch of other treatments, I started

to swim laps in my local pool. In the beginning the pain was

so bad that each stroke made me nauseous, but I persevered

because after finishing my laps, I discovered that I felt a bit better.

Back pain, migraine, head-ache, stomach ache, heart-ache,

mental anguish, etc. etc. is often not ''visible'' to others. 

If there is no plaster cast, bandage, or stitches, how bad

can the pain really be? At least there should be some

blood somewhere, shouldn't there???

(This kind of thinking in my experience, can at times unfortunately make

 it difficult for some of us to be compassionate.)

From the first scrubbed knee to the first broken heart,

the pain that goes along with those experiences

offers us an opportunity to understand and to sympathize

with others when they go through such events.

Ours is not the task of passing judgement or moralizing

whether the sufferer is worthy of our compassion or not,

our task is merely to offer our support and understanding.

Sometimes pain can teach us things we didn't

think we needed to learn.

Sometimes suffering can soften a heart we didn't

notice had grown hard.

Sometimes it may seem easier to blame others

 for our shame,

offer wild aspersions, set wagging tongues aflame.

But,

somethings in life, most precious and rare,

can only be experienced with a heart that cares.

''We create our own unhappiness. The purpose of suffering

is to help us understand we are the ones who cause it.''

(Willie Nelson)

about the image: War, .... is it not outsourcing of the worst kind?

Those who decide whether to go to war or not rarely do the

fighting, instead... they ''outsource'' the fighting to others.

Acrylic on large canvas.