Keep a Souvenir of Your Pain and Anguish.
When certain unforeseen circumstances befall us, we often react as though it’s the end of the world. Afterward, we forget the pain, torture, stress, and other forms of discomfort and headaches we went through during those times. And while that is advisable, we often get carried away and succumb to ingratitude and nonchalance as a result.
This is counterintuitive, as we’re invariably advised and counseled to forget our pain and sorrows; rejoice, and celebrate. But keeping a tab on your pain and anguish also lets you do exactly these — if you’re patient and faithful enough.
A souvenir in this scenario refers to something tangible or intangible that serves as a reminder to an experience. Current or past.
Forgetting the pain, anguish, or other forms of stress that you’re currently going through or went through to get through an ordeal seems to be the ideal thing but it’s not. Because most times we tend to forget the struggle and act short-sightedly afterward — which almost always leads us back to the same place.
We forget to show gratitude to the people who have assisted us during the process. We forget to be grateful that our hard work paid off. We forget to acknowledge the struggle and act like it was a smooth ride. We even forget to thank God.
This is the reason why it’s very important to keep a souvenir of your pain, your struggles, and anguish. Because it reminds you of how far you’ve come, what you went through. It also reminds you of how you overcame it — and essentially, to be grateful.
Another reason to keep a souvenir of your pain and anguish is that it serves as a deterrent not to repeat the things that will lead you to such a situation again. For example: when you’ve served a time for hitting down someone due to driving under the influence, and you remember the torture, that serves as a warning to be more careful in driving next time.
A different way to look at keeping a souvenir is serving as a template to use and to correct what might look like an original version of an unpleasant past experience to a pleasant one.
The third reason why it’s important to keep track of your pain and anguish is that it molds your behavior and causes you to be compassionate, specifically empathetic toward other people who are or might be in similar predicaments. Once you’ve been out of a job for a while, that means you know the pain of someone else in the same situation — likewise their joy once they get employed.
How do you keep a souvenir of pain and anguish?
Keeping a souvenir of your pain and anguish can be done by practicing mindfulness when going through difficult times.
Mindfulness is being able to pay attention to your mind and intentionally acknowledge things happening around you.
Mindfulness aids you in remembering what you went through how you went through it and how you conquered it.
Mindfulness helps you get attuned to the emotional or mental or physical scars you might have acquired during your ordeal and the life-lessons associated.
Keeping a souvenir of your pain and anguish during difficult times is hard. It’s like asking you to drown in your own pool of tears and sorrows. But keeping a record of your sad letters, your physical and emotional scars, your mental injury — are all that has transcended to your becoming — now.
And as much as you would like to deny it, you’re an epitome of your life ordeals — both good and bad. You only make a choice on what to dwell on moving forward; whether the bad or the good (past) — and what you want for your future to look like as well.
Mindfulness will aid you in accomplishing that.
Most importantly, exercising mindfulness helps to remind you that going through painful or similar emotions during difficult times isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It helps you to validate your emotions — in sync with the problems — and rather than run away from them, helps you find solutions to- and and deal with it appropriately.
With that said, it’s important to keep a souvenir of your painful ordeal because it’ll propel you to get out of that situation fast enough for you to look back and recognize all you went through, and draw a comparison of that with who you are now.
And in the end, you’d be appreciative of them.
You’d show gratitude for how far you’ve come. Gratitude for how strong you’ve become. Gratitude for how discerned you’ve become. And most importantly, how wise you’ve become — from the lessons learned.
So, release your scars and heal from them. Reveal the sad letters and learn from them. Reveal your broken heart and mend it. Reveal your pain and grow from it. It will surely pass. And in the end, you’d be appreciative of them.
Keep a souvenir of your pain and anguish for it’ll serve a good purpose when things ameliorate — even if it only means showing compassion to the next person suffering from something similar.
