'What do I know for sure?"

The first time I heard Oprah ask this question, my initial thought was, "what do you mean? I know a lot of things for sure," but truthfully, I could not think of single thing I knew for sure. Arguably, I might have been looking for a profound way to answer the question or, the answer seemed too obvious.

Either way, I was still sitting with the question lingering.. "what do you know for sure?" After what felt like a lifetime of me mulling over the question, I have come up with at least one answer for this question, a question I am certain will keep me engaged for the rest of my life. My hope is that as I grow and morph into the person I am meant to be, I will have new answers to this question but for now, here's what I know for sure:

Pain (not suffering) has a purpose

This year, I have had what is arguably the hardest year of my life. The pinnacle of what I now call my "character building year" came during the month of August and September. The details of the actual events I will save for another post or when I have fully processed what happened, better yet, when I have a language to articulate my experience. For now, its enough to say that it felt like the world was caving in on me and I did not see a way out. I have always been afraid to feel and the pain made me incredibly uncomfortable. I was ready to quit. I had already decided that law was not for me and I was done.

I have spent the past almost 7 years running from feeling and being uncomfortable. The next job was always going to save me, that's what I needed to be happy. There was always everything wrong with where I work and sometimes even the people I worked with, so in order to be happy I absolutely needed to leave. Then I would get to shock of my life when I got to the next job and I still wasn't happy. My next great saviour, I decided, had to be my career in law. It was going to come in, on a white horse and sweep me away to a land full of happiness and money. When I finally secured articles, I was ecstatic, I was finally going to experience the life of my dreams. A few months in, I had now come face to face with the reality that my new career was never going to 'save' me, it was never meant to. I found myself still feeling unhappy, still feeling unfulfilled and certainly with no money, I was devastated. What did I miss? Did I hear God wrong when this path was revealed to me?

Glennon Doyle, in the interview she had on Supersoul Conversations with Oprah titled, First the pain, then the rising, articulates this so well when she says that pain is actually not a hot potato, its a travelling professor and it knocks on everyone's door and the wisest ones say come in and sit down, don't leave until you have taught me what I need to know. Listening to this episode has changed the way I approach pain and challenges that are inevitable when you are living out the human experience.

In her book, Daring greatly, Brene Brown says that she always tells her student that "if you're comfortable, then I am not teaching and you are not learning . It is going to get uncomfortable in here and that's okay. Its normal and its part of the process". I go back to these words from time to time when I am feeling the pressure at work or in life generally. I know I hate confrontation so I am not one to "face things head on". What I know for sure is that every day I am alive I get an opportunity to learn from my pain and experiences and every painful experience has something to teach, all I need is to be open enough to receive those lessons.

G.