Pain is one of the tools to polish our personal diamond. That diamond is you, driven by your heart, so that you can embody the love that you are and share that love with those around you. Feeling pain is a sign that you are admitting suppressed emotions that are bringing you closer to your inner freedom. Being of service is an irrevocable consequence of this. Wanting to support your fellow man, do good, make a difference by using your unique talents and inspire others by your authentic way of being to do the same.

As much as you think pain is an unnecessary thing, you cannot avoid it. If you choose the path of your heart, it will not be easy and you will irrevocably feel pain. After all, everything comes in without a protective layer. Try forcefully balling your hands into a fist for a while. When you relax your hands after a while, you have to do so very carefully, because your convulsive posture causes pain the moment you relax. It won't stop there, however. You will also be more fulfilled than when you act as a puppet of your unconscious control patterns. Living from your truth, means being sensitive and becoming more and more sensitive to what is not perceivable by your senses.

You have the capacity to feel through and heal pain. Pain does not have to become suffering. Suffering is caused by the struggle between your desire and resistance to accepting what is actually happening. You suffer when you lose yourself and become too absorbed in the other person's story. You suffer when you are disconnected from who you are and identify exclusively with the make-believe reality of yourself or the other person. However, feeling pain is healing, so the key is to feel that you don't have to put resistance on the pain. Suffering, on the other hand, robs you of your life energy because you allow it to drain away to another person and make the other person the priority of your life. You are then in denial of yourself and your potential. This only activates control mechanisms and you start seeing the other person's actions as a sign of rejection, when in fact the other person is busy numbing their own pain or is still chained in a story that absolutely needs to be experienced.

It is important to grieve, allow grief, express anger, etc. and there are many ways that can support you in this. I cannot stress enough how important it is to allow your emotions! Everything is energy, both positive and negative emotions, one is not better than the other. They have a function! Express them safely, liberate them and you will get another step closer to self-love. Tears are a very important outlet, but maybe you find crying difficult, maybe you only cry internally. Then it's important to make sure it doesn't take hold in your body. Music can work strongly on your emotions and support you to let your tears flow, films that move you have the same effect. You think you are crying over a scene in a film, but what is actually happening is that you are providing yourself with an outlet for your unshed tears, allowing your pain, your emotions to flow freely.

You may have been taught from good intentions by your educators that you should keep your emotions under control or that it is better not to cry and certainly not in public. And although crying, being vulnerable and showing that you are in pain seems to be more and more accepted, you may still feel uncomfortable doing so. You may have learned to hold strong because admitting to pain implies giving away power to the person who hurt you. You don't want to let yourself be known and that is literally what happens then: you don't give away your power at all when you are vulnerable! But you are indeed definitely not really letting yourself be known! And that is precisely what is so important, starting with yourself: getting to know yourself and then being authentic in life. Maybe you are one of the lucky ones who has no charge or limitation on that. In that case, give yourself the space to cry by, for example, taking a break from your busy daily routine, or by seeking out the company of a good friend with whom you feel completely at ease.

Your body also plays an important role in expressing emotions. The body needs to be able to conduct them so that they do not take hold as suppressed energies that sooner or later result in a stagnation of your energy flow. However, the body knows exactly when emotions are suppressed and then puts everything it can to survive. What we call illness are in fact survival programmes that we can also reverse when we recognise the triggers and are willing to feel what we need to feel to heal. Suppressing these emotions acts like a deadly sword, piercing the core of your whole being essence. Activities like yoga, dancing, running, tai chi, body balance and giving yourself space to feel your body are ways to support your body to restore balance time and again.

The greatest sign of strength is your vulnerability. True vulnerability has the power to help open your heart again after you have suffered a loss, been hurt or disappointed, cheated, lied to, etc. By daring to be vulnerable, your heart cannot remain closed. And so there are other emotions that are allowed space to be there. But when you or your essential other associates love with vulnerability and associates vulnerability with being hurt and losing control then expressing that intense love is the fastest way to run away from it. It is this dynamic that causes all this to come to the surface, but the process is not meant to stay there. You are forced to face your inner demons, you may experience it as 'throwing salt in your wounds', but it reminds you what you are allowed to deal with.

The pain that you experience in connection with your essential other seems to come back again and again, just as the other also comes back again and again, even though there can sometimes be years in between. However, the pain experience is circular, you always experience the pain on a different level, but through the perception of our senses, it seems as if you haven't moved a step forward and keep getting thrown back to the same point. A frequent protection mechanism is to pretend it's not there and continue your life without a solid foundation. Eventually you do come to surrender again, because this is what this love brings about: you come to surrender yourself and love, because that is 1 and the same energy!

Just breathe in this last sentence very carefully and take it in!

It is necessary to find your personal balance, live your passion, accept yourself with all your sides. Shift your attention back to yourself as much as possible, because continuing to muse about the synchronicities and how often you dream keeps you where you are stuck. These are beautiful signs that may be taken for info, but then the universe also invites you to move on and express your unique being essence to its fullest. Your essential other is not really walking away, you cannot untie cords, it is a soul connection and it never passes. Locate your inner resistance and feel where it is anchored. In fact, just knowing that this is a soul connection may completely stagnate and confuse you because you don't know how to ease the pain you feel. You have indeed embarked on a long journey and feeling the pain is one of the ways you can heal. So allow yourself to heal and examine your resistance, because there is a lot to be gained there.

Excerpt from 'Agape' Maria Quesada