“There is suffering in life,” my teacher said.  “This is the first of the four noble truths.  There will be pain, sickness, loss and death.”

My mind immediately flew back to the morning yoga sequence where she had all of us holding a squat pose for what felt like 20 minutes (it was about 4 minutes).  I had definitely felt suffering there!  And then there was the sweet relief of being able to straighten my legs and come out of the squat.  A moment of bliss and my screaming thighs began to fade to a memory. 

I brought my attention back to my teacher.

 “We can’t avoid pain or sickness, sadness or fear,” she said.  “These are aspects of life just like vibrant health, ease or joy and all of these experiences make up a full life. 

This is such an important point.  Something I noticed after coaching hundreds of people is that everyone (yes, everyone) was searching for a life without pain.  We are bombarded with messages of living your best life or living life to the fullest and we often interpret these messages to mean a life without anything “negative.”  As a result of these messages, we spend so much of our time, energy and resources trying to create a life without pain or challenge.  We make decisions and take actions that we hope will help us avoid getting sick, losing a job, having an accident, attracting the “wrong” partner, etc.  We believe that if we can just do the “right” thing and therefore avoid anything negative, we will be living our best life. 

I became keenly aware of this belief when I was diagnosed with cancer.  So many people, when they heard about my diagnosis, responded with “how could you of all people get cancer?  You are so positive and you are all about living a joyful life.  This doesn’t make sense!”

But it makes perfect sense.  We are not immune to “bad” things happening to us just because we have a positive outlook or we teach about joy or have a regular spiritual practice or we eat our fruits and vegetables.  Life is good and bad, light and dark, ease and challenge and to make room for all of these aspects is really what it means to live your best life.  When you give up the struggle to create a pain free life, ironically, life seems to be less painful!  Here’s to you living life to the fullest!

Love,