Pain Pushes Until Vision Pulls

by Peggy Hammes

We've all heard the phrase, “No pain, no gain.” Paintells us there is something we need to pay attention to. Most of us go throughour lives just existing until pain forces us to stop, listen, and re-director start over. Most of us don’t start the sometimes difficult processof growth until pain motivates us. Pain will push us until we define for ourselveswhat it is we want and begin to live within that vision. Vision pulls us towardthe creation we want our life to be.

When we begin to alter our consciousness—to receive the possibilitiesof a new life, dream, state of awareness, or relationship—we often haveto try them on for size. In order to manifest a vision different from our currentlife experience, we have to change who we know ourselves to be. Holding a visionrequires us to adjust ourselves in some way to accommodate that vision. Itis a discipline to practice living our lives inside of a vision. We areused to defining who we are according to our experiences and what is happeningto us right now.

To begin living our lives with a new vision takes some getting used to, butonce we start, we find that the need for suffering is greatly diminished. Whenyou are not living your life out of a clear and powerful vision, you will bedriven, grounded in a belief that you will never have whatever it is that youwant.

Once we master living inside of a vision, we are no longer confined to sufferingand pain as our main vehicle for personal growth. We grow because we are inspiredby a possibility—of who we could become if we could only release whateveris blocking us. We begin to enthusiastically engage because we begin to seeand believe in the possibility.

When we start living our lives with a vision, we often begin behaving in waysthat might be foreign to us. That is because we usually make choices aboutwho are and how we behave from our past experiences. Because we do this, wetend to repeat past behaviors in the present because that is who we have definedwho we are. This confuses us and stymies us for a while because we are notsure why we continue to get the same thing we have always received when iffeels like we are trying so hard to make it different.

When we speak of a new possibility for ourselves—a new dream, relationship,way of interacting, such as “I’m committed to having an extraordinaryrelationship”—then all kinds of amazing coincidences, unforeseenopportunities, and synchronicities are put into motion. That is why it is soimportant to have integrity with our word. When we create a history of speakingand then acting in harmony with our words, we gain strength in our abilityto create with our words. We get better at it because we start getting moreresponsible for what it is that we say. We begin to develop a certain levelof consistency between what we say and what we do. It is like exercising amuscle. We get better at it the more we do it. Most of our abilities have tobe cultivated, developed, and practiced, practiced, practiced.

When we define our behaviors based upon our future instead of our past remembrances,we will act in ways according to our vision instead of according to our presentidentification. For example, a person who is committed to creating a loving,spiritual partnership in the near future behaves differently from a personwho is still dealing with a series of failed relationships from the past andidentifies him/herself as a person who has difficulty in intimate relationships.

There is a vision for you just outside of your conscious awareness. Glimpsea possibility for your life and open your heart to see it. You need only tolisten long enough to allow it to reveal itself. Engage in releasing that whichis inconsistent with the fulfillment of that vision and embrace who you willbe in order to manifest it.

Peggy Hammes, M.S., is a Licensed Psychotherapist, Certified Imago RelationshipTherapist, and Teacher of Wisdom.

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