Pain without connection becomes like a death urge. An overwhelm for the heart and nervous system. A need to escape life and numb feeling. A panicked lockdown that knows, we were not designed to live like this.

Pain with connection becomes break through. The places where we sprout shoots out of ashes. The storm, followed by the calm, followed by the wisdom. Here is where we do the spiritual work that is rarely possible without shared resources. The strength that comes from being strong enough to collapse because we know we will be caught.

Both involve pain. Where the first is pain as a sentence, the second is pain as an initiation. It’s connection that makes the difference.

May you be brave enough to seek out connection as if all our lives depended on it.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash