PROCESSING PAIN
No one on earth loves pain.
Recently while watching the popular series King Of Boys by Kemi Adetiba, I connected with the idea of pain again.
Pain is something I tried avoiding from a very tender.
From beating, words or anything that create this tingling burst of sensation.
That sensation that wouldn’t warm the body but make you feel hot and tear and going out of your mind.
Be it emotional or physical pain, I despise them and try very much to run from it.
But trust African mothers to dish out some amount at every opportunity as a child just to teach a lesson.
Now that I am grown, the biggest and most rewarding life lessons are found in painful experiences.
I began to ask why? Maybe Life will surely answer that.
Back to African parents please.
As African kids, the saying spare the rod and spoil the child is our parent’s mantra.
(whoever in the holy books said that should be checkmated)☹️
The fear of both emotional and physical pain inflicted by words is deadlier than being beaten.
And my stand point today is for the teller and the listener.
My standpoint of the ground rules to processing painful experience are:
1. Don’t lash out at people!!!
Nigerians are exceptionally good at inflicting this kind of pain mostly due to conflicting opinions.
Why table your case when you do
not want people’s honest opinion?
You must understand this person isn’t in your shoes even if they are trying.
Also the process of understanding, articulating and presenting our opinion is very important yet very different.
Know this and know peace ✌️
2. Forget All That You Know
Life isn’t about the lessons you have learned from similar experiences, it is about allowing yourself get into another’s person’s world and learning from it.
In that moment don’t make the mistake of presenting from personal point of view.
3. Be Neutral
Don’t blame anyone for you are hearing only one side of the story.
You might be making on party feel good at the expense of the other.
4. In every discussion, always stand to be corrected.
You’re no island of knowledge, you can make mistakes but the moment you accept this you will be a great source of help to people.
Always use the line “I stand to be corrected” so your listener(s) can understand that you might be wrong.
So let me ask you this, when in pain what do you do?
Do you cry, shout, talk or keep mute?
Well I practice the “silence is the best answer approach” most times and other times (broda shagi mode activated 🥺)
But whatever you do, don’t lose yourself.
If this piece brought you value, do share, comment and like.
