Memories of a Painful Time
The other day I was slowly reading this article by Dr. Madelaine Gomes MsC.D. I read it paragraph by paragraph, closing my eyes, and allowing her thoughts to be a spark to deeper and further thoughts about what this could look like in my life today.
In the article she writes this:
“…nor are we focused on the past painful experiences. Anxiety fades as we return to the now, moment by sacred moment. Depression releases its grip as light begins to enter places long locked in darkness.”
This paragraph triggered a waterfall of memories followed by a deep insight:
When I was in my late twenties, I made my first real attempt at trying to start a business. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Even some of the most basic ideas that now are common knowledge to me, like speaking to a few people to get their advice and input, or making sure that I actually had financial resources to survive for a few months – you name it, I did not know it. All I knew was I could not spend another month of my life working for the company I was working for at the time.
Needless to say, pain followed. I lost the few assets I had (or more accurately the bank's assets I had use of, as long as I kept paying for them), ended up riding around on an old motorbike and living with a friend who gracefully provided me with free accommodation while I was rebuilding my life.
This all happened in Durban, almost thirty years ago.
Memories become part of a bigger story
The other day I was in Durban for some business, and I took some time out to drive to the part of the city I had lived in so many years ago. I was able to get access to the apartment I had lived in at the time, (the one I eventually had to give back to the bank) and to go and stand on the lawn just in front of it, and look at the view that, so many years prior, I had so many times stood and looked out over, desperately praying, hoping, wishing, despairing … and processing pretty much every other emotion you can think of, as I had watched my dream slowly crumble, and then begin to turn into a nightmare.
Standing there this time, almost thirty years later, was an amazing experience. I was able to now stand there, with the benefit of being able to look back on the journey, which at that point I obviously could not look forward into. At that time, the future simply looked dark. I had very little hope.
Conversion from Pain to Meaning
The emotions I had felt then were loud. They were clear. They were painful. The emotions I experienced this time are a lot harder to describe. They were a mixture of gratitude, deep peace, even nostalgia, but also a memory of how painful those times had been. They also contained some doubt and fear, as I am in the process of starting up something new, yet again, this time off the back of a burnout experience that literally nearly killed me. The best word I could come up with that would try to maybe encompass all that I felt, was a sense of deep, indescribable meaning.
Meaning.
That is what I felt this time.
Pain had become Meaning.
Reading Dr. Gomes's article today enabled me to become aware of this process in a new way – this process by which pain becomes meaning. In fact, pain has become for me a critical ingredient to the meaning of life. Mixed with emotions like gratitude, hope and faith for the future, and a willingness to keep facing forward -- however uncertain or dark the future may seem, with as much faith as you can muster -- mixed with all this, pain becomes a critical ingredient in the recipe for a life of deep meaning.
So if you are in the middle of the pain today, may I encourage you to keep facing forward. Hold on. Take one more step, and then another. Hold on to the faith that God will show you the way through this.
Even if that faith is like the man with a dying daughter who said, “Lord, I believe, please help my unbelief.”
May you have a blessed day
Ashton
PS. My latest E-book is done. It's a really small book -- 32 pages -- but I think it's a big idea: Living a life that is promise oriented, as opposed to goal oriented.
Download a free pre-publish copy here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13xeWYiUNQcvCL0ZRpzSaXwh2tv01TJ9D/view?usp=sharing
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