Читать книгу Tears to Triumph: - Dawn Marie Daniels - Страница 11

Somebody once said we never know what is enough until we know what’s more than enough.

—blues legend Billie Holiday

In the last several years we have spoken to thousands of women, individually and collectively, and they’ve shed some tears and we have, too, right along with them. There is something cathartic about crying that seems to take all the stress of the situation off your shoulders and puts it out into the universe. Scientists have found that in our emotional tears—not the ones caused by peeling an onion—there are higher levels of endorphins and certain proteins that are natural soothing agents to the body. These types of tears also release stress-related toxins from the body.

Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. We keep it a secret, but the burden of shame and disappointment becomes front-and-center and we blame ourselves for something we had no control over. It seems that as we see pain coming into our lives, we try harder to control it. Trying to bridle what we cannot wrap our own minds around involves more personal feelings and energy; hence, we are always negotiating our mastery over pain.

We all know that pain can be fear, pain can be failure, and pain can be shame. Pain is both simple and complex. So one is led to ask: Is success, which is triumph, really the exultation, mastery, and prevailing over a challenge, or over our own pain? It is actually a combination of both, and although it seems strange, we should silently celebrate our pain as well as our triumph—celebrate our pain in the sense that it is the precipice on which we make a choice to overcome by triumph or fall into failure. Every time we choose to overcome, we open ourselves up to victory over our pain as well as a new opportunity to grow mentally and emotionally.