Pain. Are we meant to avoid it? To seek it?
Bobby sings, “For those who have been trained by it, no discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.”
The yoga instructor Adriene Mishler of “Find What Feels Good” talks about differentiating between “pain” and “awareness” when you’re doing something like a plank or downward dog in one of her classes. To me, it’s and important distinction and one related to Bobby’s song. Because the pain he’s talking about is like the pain after a workout that leads to growth, which is different than the pain of a torn muscle. (Which might have happened because you were working out too hard.) “Awareness” can feel intense, and difficult to maintain, and easy to avoid – but it won’t leave you worse off tomorrow than today.
Generations of leaders have mixed the two – “no pain no gain” has inspired countless leaders to abuse the people they lead. But if we can differentiate between “pain” and “awareness” as kinds of hurt that are sending different messages, we can then seek the kinds of pain that build us up and shun the kinds of pain that tear us down.
Auditions can seem painful but they are a pain that leads to opportunities for growth. If we avoid them, we lose those opportunities. Practice can seem painful because the self-assessment hurts our egos, but it leads to growth. Listening to recordings of ourselves can seem downright impossible, but this is the way to get better. (And of course, this is true beyond music. The sleepless nights of having a young child are painful, but they are “awareness” not pain; the same for adopting a dog knowing you’ll probably have to say goodbye to her before you’re ready.)
When we learn to separate “pain” from “awareness”, the world opens up with countless opportunities to grow in directions that previously just felt painful.