broke. The whole process, including setting out bandages and first aid supplies, took about an hour. He applied a tourniquet, cut off his lower arm, rappelled down a 60-foot cliff, and hiked 5 miles through a national park in Utah. “I’m not sure how I handled it,” he said. “I felt pain. I coped with it. I moved on.” With the makeshift bandage and tourniquet, he still had to crawl along a 147-foot canyon. He then rappelled, one-armed, down the rock face. After hiking for hours, he met a family who went for medical attention. In Aron’s case, going through pain is what he had to do to survive. Aron explained, “A lot of people think of it in terms of, ‘I would never be able to put a blade to my own skin.’ But having gone to the depths and coming to accept I could very well die there, and then seeing the light of being able to get out, it didn’t even occur to me to dwell on the painful side of the experience.” We could all learn a lot from Aron’s experience. The truth is we could all do what Aron did. The question is would we decide to do it? Aron realised that pain should not be a deterrent to getting himself off of the mountain and getting on with his life. He did not let pain stop him! In other words, he realised that pain is OK! Many people are currently
in situations quite similar to Aron Ralston’s, but they just don’t realise it. They want things to be better than they are, but in order to get to where they want to be they will have to go through pain. What they don’t realise is pain is OK! I am always surprised at how quickly some people give up and quit when they experience a little pain. We all have known men and women who have suffered painful romantic experiences and because they never want to go through that again, they commit to themselves never to remarry or go on another date! And therefore they will never experience the joy that a happy marriage would bring them. Often people are too prideful to say “I’m sorry,” even when they know it would open the door for both them and their loved ones to heal. They don’t do it because swallowing their pride and admitting they were wrong or saying “I’m sorry” would be too painful! Many never try to succeed in realising their dreams because of fear of failure or fear of rejection. In their minds they have convinced themselves that being told “no” would be more painful than never to have asked. And therefore, at the end of their lives, they find themselves still in the canyon with the boulder
continuing to hold them fast. I have learned that nothing great in life ever comes without risking and experiencing some pain. If we could only remember that pain is OK! We need to learn to cope with it and move on. As you look at what goals you have in life and where you want to get to compared with where you are today, I would invite you to ask yourself: What is preventing you from going there? What painful experiences are you avoiding? What is holding you fast in the canyon you find yourself in? Is it bad habits? Is it fear of failure or rejection? Is it pride? The greatest reason many people never reach their dreams is their propensity to avoid emotional pain. We must understand that whatever it is that is holding us back, we each have within us what Aron Ralston had. We can decide to face it head on, to “cope with it and move on.” And we can learn what he learned—pain really is OK. And when we face it and decide to go through it, it can open up a wonderful life before us!
Sincerely,
@FLVanderSloot
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JANUARY 2019 | MELALEUCA.COM
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