I am in the midst of reading The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us about Living Fully by Frank Ostaseski. In describing the second principle, Welcome Everything, Push Away Nothing, he discusses the value of leaning into suffering. I found the following anecdote meaningful and important for us to consider as we venture forth on any journey in life.
During a workshop in the rural Northwest, I was speaking on the possibilities that arise when we stop running away from what is difficult. One of the attendees, a burly middle-age man with broad shoulders and an even wider smile, spoke up. “That reminds me of telephone poles.”
I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. “Telephone poles? What do you mean?” I asked.
He explained that he once had a job installing telephone poles. “They’re hard and heavy, standing up to forty feet high.” There was a critical moment after you placed a pole in the ground, he said, when a pole was unstable and might topple over. “If it hit you, it could break your back.”
His first day on the job, the man turned to his partner and said, “If this pole starts to fall, I’m running like hell.”
But the old-timer replied, “Nope, you don’t want to do that. If that pole starts to fall, you want to go right up to it. You want to get real close and put your hands on the pole. It’s the only safe place to be.
p. 86
Instinctually, we are programmed to run away from danger, from pain, from suffering. If we think about the telephone pole, it is likely we won’t outrun it and the further away we are, the harder it will hit and hurt. If we sit with the pain, “leaning-in,” experiencing and not running away from the suffering, we are more likely to find the path to absorb and move through the pain.
This message is also important for any new adventure. As we journey into the unknown, we often try to run back to our comfort zones when confronted with difficulties along the way. If we continue to push forward and not run backwards, pushing “the telephone pole up,” we will come out ahead instead of finding ourselves further away from our goals and hopes.
May we find the fortitude to remain with the suffering and carry forward what we experience and learn from those moments in life we find ourselves challenged with the difficulties of life.
If you are someone you know is going through painful, challenging times, Contact New Beginnings Spiritual Coaching and Consulting LLC at 732-314-6758 ext. 100 or via email at newbeginningsspiritualcoach@gmail.com.
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