Don’t suffer in silence thinking it is a very cruel world out there. It clearly is not.
Through her Facebook post last evening, a young friend wonders if sharing your story of pain and suffering, and making yourself vulnerable, is worth it. She fears that it could prove costly. Instead, she believes in suppressing her suffering and smiling in pain.
From our own experience, I would say, doing just the opposite can be very liberating. Wear your Life on your sleeve. Be vulnerable. And the compassion of the Universe will nurture you, protect you and take you along.
This learning forms the essence of my Book Fall Like A Rose Petal. Sharing this learning, and inspiring happiness by encouraging people to just be who they really are, has become our raison d’etre – for Vaani and me.
What we have learnt is that the world is full of compassionate, loving, helpful people. Someone, somewhere is always there to help us onward, to last one more day. Of course, there are those who will judge you. A few others may even dump you. And some more may just choose to avoid you. But they are a minority. A lot of people are really like you and me – caught in similar Life situations, trying to grapple with pain, trying to understand how to get rid of their suffering. So, this majority, believe me, understands, appreciates and is always willing to lend you a shoulder or give you a hand.
Even as I am writing this blogpost, we are working on a short film promoting our Life Coaching Program – Let’s Talk Happyness – which is being made at zero-budget. Because we seriously don’t even have money to cover our living expenses. But our financial handicap has not prevented us from pursuing the idea with two young film-makers who we met recently. When we told them our story, they spontaneously offered to do this film. A friend offered us the venue. And another friend is offering us her studio for dubbing. All of this pro bono. Nobody is judging us. Nobody is doing this out of sympathy either. Everyone is doing this because they know what Life is and what it means to be caught in a tight spot and be vulnerable. They empathize – truly!

We must understand three things about Life in order to appreciate that being vulnerable is not wrong, and certainly not dangerous; it, in fact, is a very normal, logical, intelligent, thing to do. 1. Pain is inevitable. You clearly cannot control what happens to you in Life. And some of what happens will always cause you pain. 2. But you suffer from pain only because you wish that the pain were not there in the first place. For instance, a headache never causes suffering. A headache is just painful. It is your desire, your want, that the headache must not be there that causes your suffering. Therefore, suffering is a human creation; it is optional, it is avoidable. 3. Whatever you suppress, or resist, will persist. Suppressing suffering and smiling in pain is just martyrdom. By doing that, you are only multiplying your suffering.
So, if you are having a Life challenge, a crisis, an enormous, extra-ordinary amount of pain, or whatever it is that you are dealing with, go out there and tell the world about it. Don’t worry about the judgments a few people are likely to pass. Don’t give such people the license to prolong your suffering. Don’t try to live two lives: one to hide your suffering and another to cook in it! Just be who you are. The Life you have is the only one you have! So, be open and declare courageously: Yes, I have intense pain, I am in a shithole, I am messed up, but this is who I am. Help me if you can and I will humbly take all that you give me compassionately. If you can’t help me, then please excuse me; what you think of me, my choices and my situation doesn’t really bother me!
Try this approach, of wearing your Life on your sleeve, and see what a beautiful world it is!
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