You Need Pain, Not Courage, to Break Free

I love talking about fear. I love having conversations with it. I love writing about it, coaching others through it, and sharing my own countless fears with whomever may find it amusing. Most of all, I love it when I have a breakthrough, however small it may be. I crave the sweet feelings of crushing that power that fear seems to hold over me so I can walk right through it and continue on my path.

"You cannot stop me anymore but I sure love to see you try!", I whisper and I keep going.

I used to be convinced that fear - terror, to be exact - kept me in that corporate job for over a decade, when it was so wrong for me that I would have to make up lies about the reality of things, people, and my so-called "career path". I was certain it was the fear of uncertainty - whatever will I do on my own? - that kept me shackled to those corporate chains, however golden those cuffs may have been, they were, nonetheless, cuffs. And cuffs strip you of freedom, of creativity, of living out your desires and of pursuing your dreams.

Except, I've had a strange awakening lately, and much as I am on guard about fear, I no longer blame it for keeping me shackled for so long. It is quite obvious that I was simply not in enough pain to break free sooner!

You see, it is easy to blurt out that a job is "a pain", and that you simply "can't stand it anymore." but is that really true?

I wake up at 4:30am during the week to go get my dose of sweet torture at a local studio. It's either an hour of hard-core cycling or circuit training. I am not an athlete, but I am one persistent woman, so I do every circuit, every sprint, every climb, and I do not relax one minute during that class. You either do it well or you don't bother at all - that's my mantra. Suffice it to say that I push pretty hard.

I have never been to a single class where I did not reach the point of stopping. That point comes when I am in enough pain, and luckily it comes at the same time the instructor yells "stop, take a break"! ;)

Nonetheless, the pain comes every time and when it comes, it quietly reminds me of my commitment to a pain-free life. If I had to continue doing those circuits all day long, I would be dead. I can only do them so long and when the pain becomes unbearable, when every muscle is screaming, and my heart is racing, and the perspiration is dripping from my forehead into my eyes, I know that nothing matters more than stopping the pain and the agony.

Of course, this is self-imposed, and this particular pain - in small dosage - just happens to be brilliantly good for my body. But my point is this: enough pain will move you to any action. Nothing else matters in the face of enough pain.

Sorry to be so blunt, but if you are not moving to action, you must not be in enough pain!

And that is exactly what led me to quit my lucrative, easy, ridiculously high-paying job: the pain of doing something I neither loved nor believed in.

So I assure you that when you are in enough pain, you will break free. You will quit that lousy job, you will leave behind a lousy boss, you will separate from a lousy partner, you will walk away from a lousy company and you will find a way to deal with those inner demons and fears, because your pain has got to stop at all costs.

Are you in that much pain yet?