Ep 462 - When The Pain Gets Too Much

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request. If any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this word, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it.

I remember hearing this story about 10 years ago, it's the story of the Howling Dog sitting on the neighbor's porch. And the guy who could hear this howling doggy eventually went up to the neighbor and said, Do you mind if I ask why your dog keeps howling. And his neighbor says ie sitting on a nail. And the guy's like singer nail like why? Or it doesn't hurt enough to get off with the response. And it's such a great metaphor for how often in life you how you, you moan you complain about certain things that are digging into you. The metaphoric nails of your life that are causing discomfort enough to complain about but not enough to, to get off, not enough to change. And thinking about. In life, that there's a choice, there's always a choice, and how you react. Now you can wait until that pain gets so overpowering that you take action. And I know that I've been there, I've ended up flat out on my back when I didn't get attention from my back that I just put up with for years until my back just gave out and said you're not doing this anymore. For different situations in relationships, were not taking the steps I need to take but I would spend plenty of time complaining about it until life just continues to throw more and more feedback until you pay attention. And that's what happens. That's what happened to me. So it's not been getting down yourself for the fact that you're tolerating certain things that you're complaining, it's the awareness is a really important piece. Having the awareness around something is great, because then you can actually take steps to change. It's when you're oblivious to it, that's when the problem starts getting worse. The reality is though, if there is a metaphoric nail, that you're sitting on, causing you discomfort, the discomfort will increase until you do something about it until you address whatever the underlying causes. Even if you get medical attention for one of those pains, if you haven't addressed the root cause the pain will return either in the same place or somewhere else and more often than not, it becomes worse. So a moment for you to take stock of your life to assess where you might be sitting on something that is causing you discomfort is causing your pain. And if you're not sure about where that is, it's having a look at whereabouts are you complaining? We're about to you. Howling about a certain area of your life more often than you should. Where are you continuing to be frustrated about a particular area of your life but not doing anything about it? And I get it right, it can be hard. It can be hard to suddenly change direction and address some things and sometimes because it can feel a bit scary and it's like more often than not you're just running a behavior pattern that is not helpful. So it's about addressing what that behavior pattern is finding out where it might have come from. The reality is though, if you just sit on it and don't take any action, then You're gonna be continuing to complain. And the question then to ask yourself is do I want to be that sort of person. They want to be that dog on a porch that people can hear howling and moaning. But everyone's wondering why you're not doing anything about it. Would you want to be somebody in a place of positivity and trying to make the best of what you've got in life and trying to find ways to improve and inspire and leave a legacy leave lever? Something that people will remember. I can remember sitting at my dad's funeral, hearing all the wonderful things that people were saying about him and just thinking, I've done nothing in my life. And that was me being pretty harsh on myself, but it was the kick out the ass I needed to give myself a loss not forever. And if you're wanting to have more meaning, if you wanted to have more of an impact if you want to wanting to be remembered for the good things that you've done. The best way to enhance that is to address those areas where you are sitting on that nail and need to make changes and need to get off, find the solution. Move on to something more positive.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief. Let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform