The Pain of Rebirth.

We have all heard that change is uncomfortable.  But there is a difference between the discomfort of enduring change, and the complete anhiliation of rebirth.  When we are going through profound change, it’s not uncomfortable… its a pain so wild and unimaginable that it feels it is consuming us.  And indeed the fires of these kind of changes are burning away any illusion, delusion that keep us from really moving forward. 

 

Some change is uncomfortable.  We are putting ourselves through a new routine, learning something new, interacting in a new way… there is a challenge. With these kind of challenges usually we see them coming,. 

 We sign up, we dive in…  They are hard, we struggle, we suffer, we sometimes fall short. These challenges may change us in small or temporary ways, but often, because we are prepared for them, we muscle our way through while maintaining who we are in the process.  We come out with something new - a promotion, a degree, a wedding ring - but we are not new. We come through it carrying all the baggage we started with.

 

This is uncomfortable in the same way that a workout is uncomfortable… you push your comfort zone but at the end you don’t look or feel a while lot different.

 

But then there are  the profound changes - the ones that transform you, the ones that reshape you.  These changes that don’t just change your life, they fundamentally change who you are and how you view and interact with the world.  These changes are not discomfort, these changes are re-births.  These are the moments that tear us open… that strip us of our baggage, our illusions, our old patterns  no matter how we cling to it (and side note the longer and harder we cling the harder it becomes).

 

Rebirth is the best way to describe it because it so closely parallels the birthing process.  The changes starts as an idea. Spark in your eye, an idea you nurture over time. You may have been moving toward a change for a while… this evolution has been ripening inside you for a while.  You gestate the change. You may have felt the flutters of it in your life, even though you couldn’t see it.  You keep saying yes to this new life you’re moving towards… and then there comes a moment of no return.  The birthing process begins and it intensifies until a point of transition a force beyond anything you’ve ever known moves through you.  Wave after wave of intensity pounds against you.  Most people at this point want to quit, they want to go back but that option does not even exist anymore.  The only way through is forward.  And the only way through is total surrender to this other worldly force 

 

These are the challenges that don’t even afford us the option to give up but demand that we give in… to give in to the invisible hand of the Divine, give in to the invisible forces moving through us.  These ,moments demand we  pray for guidance becaus there is no certainty anywhere.  we give in because even to give up just creates more of the same.  There is only one way out but you’re not consciously in control of it… nob amount of doing will fix it, and it often makes it worse.  And so you must sit in the refining flames of this moment in life and wait for a miracle.

 

In these moments you feel torn apart by the constant push pull of breaking down and breaking through.

 

When you feel you cannot go further, when you feel you can’t do it, when you geel like you want to give up, that is your invitation to give in,.

 

 

These are the pain of being reborn, 

 

A pain that burns away all illusions… this is how Truth is born in you. 

 

A pain so intense that it softens your heart towards others… this is how compassion is born. 

 

A pain that shakes you to your core so that all that is left to do is reach for the only sturdy thing left - God… and in this process Faith is being born.

 

I lean in to the practices that bring insight and ease… I cut out the things that I know lead to more pain.  I move my body, nourish my body, i take rest.  Discipline is being born.

 

A pain so bewildering that you questions everything you once believed, you start to question, and start to witness your own conditioning… this is how discernment is born.  

 

A pain so humbling that you lay your heart in the hands of God… and a true sense of service to something greater than yourself is born.

 

A pain so profound that you cannot manage to move forward alone, so you deepen your connection to others, and Love is born.

 

And as with any birth, the transition phase is hardest.  Wave after wave hits you until you think you cannot go any further.   This is the sign.  This is the moment where if you can just hold on a tiny bit longer, you will be delivered.