Have any of you watched Naruto? *waits for a show of hands* Yes, I have too. Remember Pain? He was disillusioned and full of hurt and well pain. He believed that the world was trash and the only way people would learn was through pain.

Nagato (Pain) was being manipulated by the trash Madara but that’s not the point. Nagato made some very interesting points. I remember back when I read that whole arc it got me thinking and even I started to feel down until Naruto came along and slapped us both in our faces.

So before I go on yes, we do learn from pain but we don’t have to let it keep us down. We should fight to stand through the pain and strive to reach a place of no pain. Or even the pain we experience helps us to help others. For example: I didn’t truly understand heart break until I went through it and now I can help others.

So yeah that’s the disclaimer.

Onto the main topic of this blog post… we learn from pain. I truly believe that we do.

When life is good and things are going great it’s nice, it’s fantastic even but it makes it really hard to relate to people who have experienced pain.

For example let’s go back to Naruto (don’t want to use real life examples lest I offend anyone… even if I reveal no names). When they were trying to steal Sasuke Gaara and Naruto had a fight. Gaara throughout his life had experienced horrendous pain through loneliness and if you don’t think loneliness is painful then just think about why it kills and it’s one of the worst things elderly people experience (in the UK anyway).

So when Gaara was lamenting and being bitter Naruto crawled over to him using his chin (long story) and basically told him, “Shut up, I know how you feel! If I hadn’t met Iruka sensei I would be you.” Naruto was lonely, he felt like an outcast and did anything to get people to notice him, to look at him. He had no one in the world, not even a single sibling. But all it took was one loving person to turn his life around.

Then Naruto told Gaara that because of Iruka, because of the help he had gotten he wasn’t going to let life keep him down. Even if he had to crawl with his chin he would defeat Gaara.

That spoke to Gaara and was the only thing that reached his heart. I’m sure Gaara’s siblings tried to tell him these things or maybe his dad (though I doubt it) but they never understood Gaara’s pain and they always viewed him as strong and a weapon. It took someone understanding his pain for him to listen.

To translate that to real life it took me experiencing a break up to understand heart break as I said above. I never understood break up songs, not really. I honestly would only sing break up songs to be dramatic. I thought it was stupid to get so bogged down over a man and I wondered why people wallowed in their pain instead of picking themselves up.

I mean I understood that people needed a mourning period but I didn’t understand what that felt like. That was until I went through it myself.

There are some things you have to experience to understand.

Yes I am an empath but I don’t understand everything and sometimes I don’t understand what I’m picking up from people. Some people have such strong pain and I don’t know what to do with what I absorb (I also think I buried my head in the sand).

However as I go through life and experience different pains, I am understanding more. I am able to relate in the same way Naruto was able to relate exactly to Gaara.

Also sometimes we have to go through pain to understand why we shouldn’t do something. Sometimes we ignore warning signs and I don’t just mean in romance but in friendships too and in familial relationships. We ignore them because we don’t want to be right or we think we’re looking too deep into it or because we don’t want our instinct to be right (at least this is true for me). So sometimes pain teaches us to trust our instincts and to listen to the red flags.

I wish it was different though and that we didn’t need to learn through pain. It’s not something I recommend but I believe it is inevitable. I don’t think there is one person on this earth who will not experience pain.

Thus I advise you to be like Naruto. Every time you get knocked down stand up. Even if you have to drag yourself back up, do it. Even if you have to ask for help, ask! As long as you get back up you can try again, you can move forward and you can live.

 

Ps: Also pain is relative; we can’t judge another person’s pain. If they feel it, if it makes them feel like they’re dying, no matter what we think that is their truth.