I Can’t Tell You It Gets Easier

But, knowing that will set you free

I spend a lot of time in my daydreams. I often paint a better tomorrow in my mind, and I use the mental images to ground me. I rest at night only by dreaming first, telling myself “good things are coming,” in order to put the overwhelming and painful thoughts that keep me up to bed.

I find I have a habit of daydreaming and saying this to myself in preparation for a moment when things suddenly feel “easier.” A time will come when I am light on my feet and in my heart, head, and spirit — the hope keeps me going. I visualize this ‘me,’ and she is at peace; she recovered from her demons and is in flight with all her dreams.

It is interesting when I break down this escapist coping mechanism and its healing nature toward my current pains and acknowledge the fog it creates; it is truly a small band-aid to a large wound. If I continue to visualize this version of myself, as if a time is going to exist where nothing hurts anymore, I am a fool. I will wake to a woman years from now, who still puts herself to sleep the night before with wishes of a better tomorrow. In reality, I know that things won’t magically get easier because I will never become excused from heartache — but, I do know I can control my thoughts and my reactions to suffering.

We see this idea in many schools of philosophy and mindfulness practices. Once we make peace with suffering, we are free. If we understand, we can be in the depths of life’s rough water and let the waves take us with patience rather than fight against something more powerful than us only to be left tangled in the sea and depleted. It’s understanding we can take on the difficulties of life that arrive like hail storms but choose to recognize them as rain showers — letting each deceptively nourishing droplet caress our skin as we stand tall with our arms spread wide. Pain cannot break you when you perceive it’s intentions differently.

Sit down and think about the things that weigh on you, tear you apart, and feel too heavy, would eliminating them make things easier? For a moment, maybe. More comfortable, sure, but easier — I don’t think so. Eliminate those issues and not only do new ones arrive, but you lose as well what the challenge brought you; the ability to make you appreciate maybe what you hadn’t and grow in ways you didn’t know you could.

There will always be battles to face and phases of time that feel like the universe is against us. Peace from this, the hope that one day I or you can breathe easy and be worry-free is not gifted to us. We do not arrive there, even when we beg for a break, thinking, “I’ve been through enough.”

This sense of peace truly begins whenever we want. Whenever we are willing to accept and appreciate, that it doesn’t get easier because life will always be a mixture of light and dark; defeat and victory.

We can choose to see both the despair and delight’s in life as equals, as part of this whole experience, and reacting is the key to how we allow both pain and pleasure to impact us — in theory, making things “easier.”

Rather than holding onto an idea, a future where nirvana exists here on earth and instead choosing to understand that the pain we experience is just as beautiful and essential as the times of joy in our life — accepting that is what allows room for a more graceful life each day.

The self-hatred we face at times, complicated love, pressures, daily stresses, death, and evil in this world soften once we can dive into their dark sides and embrace them.

If we look at the parts of the day that feel damaging to our wellbeing in the face, sit with the areas in our minds we want to light on fire, and show them that we are there — we love them; they lose their control.

Kill the not-so-easy times with as many tears as you need too, but with acceptance as well. I’m trying to do this myself, and I am beginning to walk with wounds that had once kept me on the ground. Taking the high road to pain is difficult, but peace seems, time and time again, to rest at the end of that street. We are not in a cage to suffering.

“Okay, this is life. I’m in the darkness. I feel it’s presence, and I welcome it — There will be light again.”

There is no way to understand the feeling of joy without understanding misery. There is no life without the pain of labor. There is no music without stories of heartbreak. There is no character in a mind free from flaws. There is no hope without resisting hopelessness and no way to be courageous on this earth without turning your back to fear.

It may not get easier on its own, but this is life; a messy, painful, beautiful, and organic experience that we have the control, in time and with practice, to find peace with at any time — let the violent hail hit you like gentle rain.

Citation:

MansionairVEVO. “Mansionair — Easier.” YouTube, uploaded by Masionair, 10 Nov. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja9IUKElT5w.