No one is immune to hardships in life.
Emma works in Oil and Gas. Everything looked rosy in 2015 when he got a scholarship to study at University of Paris. Upon graduation his family highly esteemed him having come from a poor background.
Like most first time rich folks in his family, he bought a car, a plot of land and invested a few millions in mutual funds. Among his peers he looked fine but what his parents or friends did not know was his addiction to sex. He has been so secretive about it but it’s starting to show.
Recently he got promoted to a managerial position but power exposed his long hidden secret. He was caught in office at 10:00 pm engaging in illicit sexual activities with a security guard.
Emma’s case is extreme but it’s very common to find people in the workplace who have never learnt how to be courageous and deal with pain to their advantage.
In life we deal with difficult emotions such as shame, grief, fear, despair, disappointment, and sadness.
The issue is not to choose a path of least resistance but to learn how to navigate momentary pain to our advantage. Why is this important?
Not knowing how to use the momentary pain to one’s advantage can lead to numbing and taking the edge off of feelings that cause vulnerability, discomfort, and pain.
People will engage in behaviors that numb their feelings or help them to avoid experiencing pain.
Some of these people are fully aware that their behaviors have a numbing effect, while others do not seem to make that connection.
When I Coach people whom I’d describe as living a whole life about the same topic, they consistently talk about trying to feel the feelings, staying mindful about numbing behaviors, and trying to lean into the discomfort of hard emotions.
The consequences of numbing are real and over the years I have learned that:
- Most of us engage in behaviors (consciously or not) that help us to numb and take the edge of off vulnerability, pain, and discomfort.
2.Addiction can be described as chronically and compulsively numbing and taking the edge off of feelings.
- We cannot selectively numb emotions.
When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.
The most powerful emotions that we experience have very sharp points, like the tip of a thorn. When they prick us, they cause discomfort and even pain.
Just the anticipation or fear of these feelings can trigger intolerable vulnerability in us. We know it’s coming. For many of us, our first response to vulnerability and pain of these sharp points is not to lean into the discomfort and feel our way through but rather to make it go away.
We do that by numbing and taking the edge off the pain with whatever provides the quickest relief.
We can anesthetize with a whole bunch of stuff, including alcohol, drugs, food, sex, relationships, money, work, caretaking, gambling, staying busy, affairs, chaos, shopping, planning, perfectionism, constant change, and the Internet.
Jesus puts it best in John 16:33 when he says “I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have [perfect] peace. In the world you have tribulation anddistress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world.” [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.]
You can only have perfect peace when enduring hardships if you know that it works for your good to endure.
Endure the hardships of career growth instead of numbing the pain from sleeping your way to the top.
Endure building steady wealth instead getting regrets of taking and giving bribes to earn more in short run.
Endure working through the small misunderstandings you have with your spouse instead of looking for pleasure outside the marriage Union that might cost you the Union that God gave you.
Endure because the rewards are worth it. You have the courage to live a life that is void of compromise
