What is this pain?

It starts as tightness in the upper solar plexus. Then you start as an ice cream on a drop of hundreds of Degree-Day, and finally melts to a coating vague overall form of ambivalence. Sometimes it is aged in despair and even depression for some. The "it" is the desire for meaning. It can swallow everything.

I began to feel in my twenties, I cling to my dream of becoming a Broadway star when typing, which would be fought my seventhYear of waiting tables in New York City. I have had five years to do so, but in the seventh, I had to get "job a day" through work. It 'was at this point that I remember, I hooked a few suggestions on what must have felt to do with my life. The effort was wrong, and the answers do not come quickly. Two years passed, my deepening depression in total darkness, and then suddenly, in the sense came to me in the form of floor painting and stuffing envelopes for theManhattan Center for Living - a non-profit short-term, the organization that has been a haven for people dealing with life-threatening diseases. Doing menial jobs for a good cause was more meaning in my life in a handful of Wednesday afternoon, when all the years of enslavement my way through school and a career as a fact. He made more sense than in the past four years has had therapy.

One day when I painted the floor white gloss paint, the swinging motion ofRoles of the roll and the sound of color separation of the role and smacking the ground, I was taken to a quiet place. I felt comfortable in the task itself. I was fully aware of my actions and fully focused on them. All fear the future or the pain of the past, began to disappear.

When I finished painting that day, I was alone in a large room, white wall, ceiling and floor. E 'was there that I settled down next to a table and a folding chair ofThe task was for me. As I filled hundreds of bags, I developed a rhythmic pattern of my work: Open the cover of the newspaper, run the sponge over the lip - again and again. The task was low, but when I checked the room with his eyes and saw the office that private treatment rooms, massage room would be, and meeting rooms, I knew that the people who passed through these doors to find comfort and help was much worse me. Woulddealing with HIV / AIDS, lupus and cancer. Since this is recorded, I began to feel the shedding of my despair. I understood that my illness just a lack of perspective - and even though weaken my spirit and my body cold, my point of view it was definitely something I had the power to change.

Today I can tell you that the pain I experienced, and the day in the great hall were all white for a reason. Without this pain, I discovered that Ihad a vocation to help others and I would not have continued to spend almost 20 years of coaching and advice of others. All the pain that I had invited experienced growth - and more pain and more growth. And while it is over, the cycle is less intense over the years. And now, just as growth is welcomed, the pain may be accepted.

As a life coach and most recently, as well as an interfaith minister, I have invited people to help them healtheir lives. "Let me understand my place. It brings me peace," is something I hear often. I know the desire that comes with these thoughts. You can see the pain of not follow to set a clear path ahead of us. We do not feel pain to know the value or we will leave our mark. We want to know the subject. We fight when you do not recognize or feel gives us nothing particularly unique about us. We have egos and we need validation. We need to be experts. As thea small child jumping in the pool saying, "Mommy, look, look at me" We never quite know which exceeded the required proof of our existence and feel better when we have it.

So what is this mysterious thing called meaning? Well, it can be in various shapes and sizes, but one thing is certain: it is something that we all want. And then in today's world our desire has taken on a new intensity. Why? Maybe because we can try as many things - there aremany options to choose from - it is all too easy to forget what we are looking for. We are confused. We think we're hungry, so you have something to eat. We think we're bored, so we buy a new toy. We think that we touch (good idea), then we go on retreat (for the weekend, then on Monday we are back to the starting point). We pack for quick fixes and no sticks. Why? Why do not we know what we're longing is an integral part of our being of anyable to provide a cosmetic improvement.

As I watched coaching clients have to reconstruct aspects of their life is a challenge to decipher, as it was important to measure. What makes a serious relationship with someone else? What is meaningful work? Who decides what is reasonable? And 'what is said or done, or rather, how we feel?

I would say something to the effect that we feel more than anything else, what we do. Sense is a stateof consciousness. It broke out in connection - to ourselves, each other, the earth, spirit, work, or even an inanimate object. A chain is no sense in itself, but when we have the time, place and person, which we join, we need a new feature. It assumes significance. It enters our consciousness as something precious, that we pay attention.

In the empty white loft I was connected (as opposed to my pain) for the first time in a longMy time and I was able to connect to others, even though the place was empty feeling. Significance was on fire. I felt the hope of the people that walk through that door and I could also feel their pain and frustration. I lived their innocence, as people would not ask to be sick, but had to navigate reality. Compassion consultants, therapists and practitioners of the body, ready to serve, was there with my heart beating too. The dissolution of my armsdeafness when I was once allowed me to heal with the intention that these spaces were permeated to connect. All that has taken the meaning and purpose was to turn that live in my consciousness. Support that has a long journey with ups and downs, but all I could hear the passage, I always knew it back if I lost it.

For many, religion is the key to the validation by itself dictate the Old and New Testament that a life oriented to Godall the meaning you need. The third Abrahamic tradition, Islam is, God (Allah) at the top of a meaningful life. Buddhism urges its followers to stop looking for meaning in the material world and believe that the only way to avoid suffering, this distance is cultivated. Indian cultures teach that true self-knowledge and compassion for others the way to a meaningful life. Every culture has its own slightly different translations.

FromI have studied all religions and mystical traditions talk to me as the most relevant to the desire for meaning in our time. Mysticism suggests a direct link between us and the force (s), rule our lives. There are intermediary doctrine, dogma or ritual, as a prerequisite. But as can be heard immediately? absolute trust and genuine comfort, 'not knowing. " With

Oh trust. This is a difficult thing in those days. All around us, venerable institutions, laws and constructshow we work our life is crumbling. We do not know who believed in us to guide our progress. Our religious institutions, our government, our financial institutions, our businesses, our families and our schools - these structures do not work their magic, as they are accustomed. I think one of the main reasons is the meaning to grasp this point, we struggle to feel a connection to things we can count on. But if we do not count on the same things that we count on themSo far we have no choice but to trust in yourself and what is less tangible. In other words, we have confidence in things that are, at least at first glance, have much less monumental.

This is one of the great ironies that while our hunger for a life of "significant" can be enormous, these days more and more our desire for meaning is ultimately fed through the smaller issues, the quietest of our lives . Importance is where to look for them - and also the way of seeing things. Relevanceprint in reality around us, and the circumstances that you can be like a Escher. Life can look pretty meaningless until we change ourselves at some point or points, and the image. How is the focus, there is peace, the discovery may make sense.

When I started writing this book, which means that with a capital M in bold flooded my thoughts. But then a number of other words M and forth - words like mystery, magnificence, and the mind - and in this book I will takeThrough them in the hope that they serve as markers on your way as you continue the search for a meaning of its own. As my research developed and led me to join the inter-religious seminar, I found evidence for the exploration of many religious traditions that appear here to serve you pulled on your way.

How can we hope that the specific site and in all of us, where the joy is to find tangible? There is no simple answer to this question, but one thing is certain:include the feeling that life is meaningful. Importance solve the mystery, as they deepened. We take it home, even as it opens up infinite possibilities for landscapes. Ultimately, however, relieve the pain.

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