Don’t Waste The P.A.I.N.

Once you see what you actually are, that you're an infinite, limitless being, you'll see that nothing exists outside of you. I'm your host, Derek Grant, and this is the Pathway to Your Results Podcast. Bro, ladies and gentlemen, welcome. Welcome back. Welcome for the first time. This is the Pathway to Your Results Podcast.

It is your brethren D to the G. Uh we're gonna talk about today this thing that we call pain. Pain and why we run from it. Everybody runs away from pain, pain, pain, pain. I worked with a guy who plays with Miami Heating. His name is uh Davion Mitchell. Shout out, Davion. Dave, what's up, bro? Um, and he has you know he started putting on his Instagram, he put always put pain, pain, pain.

So this became like his moniker, right? His mantra, pain. And he he's fallen in love with what we call the grind. He's fallen in love with working out every single day, getting up super early, multiple times a day, because he's fallen in love with the thing, the pain. So we were on a call the other day and we were talking.

I said, you know, when you like, he's like, DG, I just love like, I love the pain. I love it. I said, we gotta understand that pain is an acronym. Okay, it's an acronym. And here's the other thing, too. A lot of people think pain is telling them to stop. Sometimes pain's just asking you to respond just a little bit differently.

Okay. See, there's useless pain. That's what we call suffering. Okay. That's when uh we repeatedly create pain by refusing to learn. And see, then there's what we call productive pain. Productive pain is the discomfort that's associated with growth, with discipline, with truth, with change, with endurance, with becoming.

So the question isn't how do I avoid pain? The question is, what am I going to do when it comes? So as me and him are having this conversation, I told him, I said, don't waste the pain. And that's what you're doing this offseason. You're not wasting the pain. See, pain without reflection is what we call suffering.

Y'all go ahead and don't at me on that one, okay? Pain without reflection is what we call suffering, but pain with awareness is what we call instruction. So when I pay attention and I ask myself, why am I feeling this? Now I can actually extract the information. And now that pain is actually teaching me, it's helping me.

But if you don't reflect with it, all you're doing is creating suffering. So the goal wasn't necessarily to love pain. The goal is to stop being controlled by the fear of pain. So a lot of us are afraid of pain. But hopefully, this podcast, this episode, will help you to understand what pain is if we look if we break it down into an acronym.

The first letter P will stand for persistence. Persistence. Persistence. You know, we did the episode on the pain cave. Remember the pain cave? Remember we met with adversity in that pain cave and he was talking crazy. Remember that? Right? Pain, the P is persistence. So this is when the situation, pain is asking you.

The situation is asking you, will you keep going? Will you keep going even when it's hard? Because one time you gave up. And I have to tell you this, you didn't give up because you weren't capable. You gave up because the experience became more uncomfortable than what you expected. Good God Almighty.

I don't think y'all hear nothing I'm saying. You thought it was gonna be easy. You thought it was gonna be a cakewalk. You thought it was gonna be easy breezy cover girl, didn't you? You thought it was gonna be something. Oh, this would be, and then it wasn't. See, you develop expectations. See, the beginning was fueled by excitement, just like I told you in the last episode.

We get excited at the beginning, right? And then it gets messy in the middle. Persistence can only begin when the excitement dissipates. Persistence can only start to kick in when comfort has left the party. So pain is you asking yourself this first letter, P, am I still gonna show up even though we just broke up?

And now I got these mouths to feed, and I'm a single parent. Can I still show up for myself even though my heart has been broken? Can I still wake up today even though I don't know how I'm gonna make ends meet? So think of it like this: you're running an endurance race, girlfriend. You out here running a race right now, and your job isn't, is not to focus on the pain.

Your job is to first focus on that letter. And I'm just gonna be persistent. I'm gonna be persistent for myself. I'm gonna be persistent for my kids. I'm gonna be persistent for the version of me who's waiting for me. See, that's one thing we don't think about. We got a version of you who you becoming.

She's waiting for you. He's waiting for you. Arms behind its back, just sitting here patiently waiting, as if it was a Secret Service member or something, or part of the British Parliament. Just wait, you know, the ones with the horse and the big old hats. He just sitting there waiting for you. All that's waiting for is for you to catch up to the identity to come up there.

But here's what ends up happening: times get hard, now we start negotiating with ourselves. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. Maybe I should stop. What's the point? And then we'll start to say, I can't, I can't do this. I can't continue anymore. I don't want to discomf uh feel this discomfort anymore. But instead, this first letter P is about you staying in the uh staying in the relationship even when the honeymoon phase is over.

Huh? Do you not realize? Everybody, everybody say, oh, marriage is marriage is hard. I say, why? Why? Marriage ain't gotta be hard. Well, wait till after the first year. I get it. The honeymoon phase is gonna be over. I get it. But here's the deal. See, I got this thing that we call persistence. Persistence means you can't, you can't, you, you, you, I don't, I don't die easy.

I don't give up easy. I was telling my son this the other day, I said, you know what your secret weapon is, son? He said, What? I said, You have the gene of persistence all through your veins. I said, No matter what, I don't care if you're not playing, I don't care, you can go play, it doesn't matter.

You're gonna figure out a way to get your butt on that floor because you are persistent. You are persistent. So the reason why I'm saying this, because here's the deal. Good God Almighty, if you are persistent, meaning I can keep showing up, how though? How am I gonna lose? How am I gonna fail? How am I ever not gonna get there?

Do y'all hear what I'm saying? I don't think y'all hear what I'm saying. I'm about to get off this motherfucker because I don't think y'all hear what I'm saying right now. How in the world can I anything ever stop me if I can never stop? Huh? How? So this is what I keep telling myself. I keep telling myself, pain ain't going anywhere.

It ain't going anywhere. But here's the deal: don't confuse discomfort with defeat. Okay? I don't need to be unstoppable, right? To keep moving. I'm just the one who keeps showing up and keeps showing up and keeps showing up and keeps showing up and keeps showing up and keep showing up and keep showing up.

And here's if you do it right, you know what life's gonna say? Damn, is she annoying? She don't, she don't, she keeps showing up. She keeps coming back. Why does she why in the world does he keep showing up? Matter of fact, give it to him then. Golly, get go ahead and give it to him. He keeps showing up fine.

He can have it, go. So if you are persistent, you'll keep going. And now the next letter A is awareness. Awareness. So anytime the pain comes, you know what we ask? What is this trying to show me right now? Hmm? So now it's deeper than you just pushing through something. See, now you're using it on a new level, a new level of consciousness.

Okay? And here's the deal not all pain is supposed to be pushed through. Some pain is information that you need to sit and feel it. I need to sit in this right now. I need to feel that. I can't just push through this. You see what I'm saying? Emotional pain, usually, and we talk about emotional pain, emotional pain is going to reveal that you got an attachment somewhere.

There's a wound here, there's an expectation, there's a lack of a boundary, or there's a belief that doesn't that isn't aligned with the life that you say you want to live. So all pain can't just be the same, but your job is to get curious around the pain. Become that five-year-old. Why does it hurt?

Why? How come this pain keeps showing up? What do I believe about this? What's within my control? You see, by asking those questions, now you're invoking what we would call awareness. And here's the thing what I've learned about pain. Pain is expensive. If you don't learn from it. So the more information I have, the more energy I have.

And what is the currency of this universe? It is energy. So the pain is the energy, and the awareness turns information into wisdom. So now if I can extract uh uh information, this is how I become more wise. And then you start to see, oh my goodness, everything is here to teach me. Everything. Everything.

So now once I have the awareness, now we can move into the third letter, which is A, which is I, which is intentionality. That's the question of asking yourself, what you gonna do now? Huh? What you gonna do now? Now you know. You know what you need to do. Somebody asked me a question, like, how do I act out of my my shadows or in there telling me all this stuff?

I said, You over here telling me all of this stuff? You know, you know it. What you gonna do with the information that you have? Hmm? You need to know why you keep doing it, why you keep experiencing this emotional pain, this psychological pain. Now, what are you gonna do differently? So, we've talked about this before in life.

A lot of people don't realize though, it's not about what happened to you.

unknown Right?

We've all been reined on. All of us in some way, shape, or form. It's not about what has happened, it's more about how do I respond to it. That's where your power is, right? And here's what a lot of people do, what I find, and I'm sorry if I'm talking to you. I apologize in advance. Sometimes we'd rather just go ahead and talk about what has happened instead of asking that question of how do I respond now?

Because talking about what has happened has allowed me to stay in this pain cave, and I was never supposed to stay in it. I was never, what do you say, misery loves company? You were never supposed to hang out with them. But see, if we keep talking about what has happened now, we ain't got to change.

So here's how I look at it. I break my life down into what can I control and what don't I, what can I not control. I know that I don't control every situation, but here's what I do control. I choose or don't choose to participate in the experience of the situation. I get to choose. So awareness is what shows me what I'm doing.

Intentionality is what ends up breaking what you are doing. Am I acting unconsciously or am I doing this consciously? So the reason why I'm saying this is because pain is the portal. It's the portal.

It's the portal.

I told you when I was running that half marathon, I was feeling all this pain. I was sore and I was tired, I was this, and then days later I was still sore and I was tired, and then all of a sudden I had a breakthrough, and the breakthrough didn't happen until I stopped negotiating with myself. So the pain was trying to show me the whole time.

You don't even realize it, but you keep making up all these excuses because deep down inside there's a version of you who doesn't really think that it can do this. Do you hear what I'm saying? The only reason why you negotiate with yourself, the only reason why, is because you have a version of you in your psyche who is terrified of becoming someone that it has never been.

And you are afraid to become who you need to be. Despite that version of you who doesn't think that it's possible. I'm here to tell you anything is possible if you can conceive and put your mind to it. But there's gonna be pain involved. That death is gonna happen. And before you get to that death, the negotiations will be crazy.

Which brings us to the last letter. Non-negotiable. Non-negotiable. So pain, persistence, awareness, intentionality, that end is non-negotiable. Here's the question that that non-negotiable ask. What are you willing to surrender? Sorry, what are you unwilling to surrender? What are you unwilling to let go of?

See, I was unwilling to let go of the excuse that I'm not a runner. I was unwilling to let go of the excuse that this isn't what I do. I was unwilling to let go of the excuse that I'm tired. My body hurts. So the what? Everybody's body hurts. Everybody's tired. If these little kids can get out here at 10 years old and run, why can't you?

Huh? You see, I was negotiating.

Hmm?

I was allowing room for excuses and justification. We've talked about this before. See, you'll stay put and you'll stay right where you are and you negotiate with yourself. You know why? Oh, it's hard. I'm tired. The reason why you do that is because it's easier for you to just stay the same. I'm sorry, and I apologize if I'm talking directly to you.

I know you feel like I'm probably sitting right there next to you right now, listening. But you can stop it now. Because here's the deal: you got things in your life. You got things in your life that are non-negotiable. Maybe your health, non-negotiable. Maybe your integrity is non-negotiable, right?

Maybe keeping promises to yourself is non-negotiable. Showing up for your family is non-negotiable. Uh uh building the vision that I want for my life is a non-negotiable. Becoming who I'm capable of being is a non-negotiable. But here's the deal when things start to get painful, what ends up happening?

The mind will start to negotiate. Well, maybe tomorrow. Well, maybe this isn't for me. Maybe I've done enough. Well, maybe I guess how many times I hear this? Oh my goodness. Maybe the universe doesn't want me to. Well, the what? Oh my gosh, I feel like God doesn't want me to. Oh, is that what it is?

Is that what it is? You laughing right now because you know I'm talking about you right now. I feel like, oh my gosh, I feel like here's what people say, I feel like the devil's really attacking me. Uh no. That's you who keep self-sabotaging because you are afraid of changing your behavior because it would require you to let go of the story that you have been telling yourself for all these years.

So that's why I ask you. Non-negotiable means what are you unwilling to surrender? Right? So, what I've found, and I found this on runs, right? Two-hour run, hour run. If everything is negotiable, pain will eventually negotiate you out of your future. Let me go ahead and say that again for the people in the back because I don't think that they heard me back there.

Can you all hear me back there? Okay. If everything is negotiable, then pain will eventually negotiate you out of your future. So now you will decide that something is difficult before you've actually even stepped up to the plate. Well, I don't know if I can hit this guy, throws too fast. No, he doesn't.

You've already beat yourself because you've negotiated with yourself. You thought there was a choice. This is what I'm telling you. Discipline is what allows you to keep you from making a decision before you even stepped up to it. See, when I told you about that marathon when it was cold and it was raining and it was dark, see, I didn't have the discipline because I was listening to my physical body.

But here's one thing I've learned about athletics. If you fatigue your body, you will eventually tame your mind. And your job right now is to, when you're in a situation, you're in a circumstance right now that you're like, oh my gosh, I'm exhausted, I'm tired. Good. This is your affertation, your opportunity to tame your mind and start to stop.

That makes no sense. Why would you start to stop? Okay, let me rephrase that. Stop negotiating with yourself. Stop it. Stop. You have so much potential. You're capable of so much more. But if you think there's an out, oh my gosh. You're selling yourself short. So when the pain arrives, P persistence.

Don't quit just because it hurts. Don't quit just because it's uncomfortable. Don't quit just because there is pain. Because next you gotta move into letter A, which is becoming aware and asking yourself, what is this trying to show me right now? And now I can move with intentionality, which is I, I can choose to respond instead of automatically reacting like I would normally do.

And when you get to this point, that last letter N, negoti non-negotiable, non-negotiable. You return back to the commitment that you had made to yourself before the pain had ever shown itself. This is what it means to be non-negotiable. It's you remembering the vision before adversity struck. You see, you didn't negotiate with yourself when everything was all hunky-dory.

You didn't negotiate with yourself when everything was uh uh uh rainbows and unicorns. You started negotiating with yourself when things looked like or felt like it wasn't going to happen. That's when you started to negotiate with yourself. So persistence is what keeps me moving, awareness is what keeps me learning, and intentionality is what keeps me choosing, and non-negotiating is what keeps me anchored to the vision.

Do you see? So now pain doesn't become something that you quote unquote endure. Pain ends up becoming the well of information that you extract from. And now, hopefully, if you go back a couple weeks ago and listen to this episode on the pain cave, now it might hit a little bit differently. Because eventually all of us are gonna have to enter into the cave.

Your business has a pain cave, your marriage has a pain cave. Parenthood has a pain cave. Your training has a pain cave. Anytime that you are building something meaningful, folks, there will always be a pain cave. Transformation absolutely has a pain cave. So here's the issue is when you get inside the pain cave and you think something must have gone wrong.

Not necessarily. What I found is the pain cave is actually just a part of the route. The pain cave is actually a part of the journey. So we're gonna go there. Yeah. And the person who goes in the pain cave most of the time is not the person who comes out of the pain cave. See, you went into the pain cave wanting accomplishment, you wanted recognition, you wanted approval, you wanted acceptance, but you came out with resilience, you came out with patience, you came out with perspective, you came out with stamina, you came out with self-trust, you came out with discipline, you came out with capacity because you went into the pain.

You went into the pain cave looking for the finish line, but you came out finding yourself and know this.

Eventually you're gonna get to this new version of you. I'll run this hundred miles, and then it'll be on to the next version. Remember Odysseus when he made it back home finally? Him and Penelope got on that boat and they went back out into the ocean, escaping this, uh chasing the escaping sun. It was on to the next journey, it was on to the next adventure.

So here's my question to you. What are you going to do with your pain? Because I know you got some. I got some, you got some, we all got some. I was in the treadmill this morning, and that pain came, and I kept negotiating and kept negotiating. I told myself we ain't gonna negotiate no more. And I kept telling myself, I love this, I love the pain, I love the hurt, I love, and then all of a sudden the relationship with it changed, and I got all this energy, and then there was no pain.

None. It's because we accepted it, that this was a part of the journey.

This is what persistence is. So don't waste the pain. So when pain gets difficult, persist.

Just persist. When you don't understand why this is why me? How many times do you do that? Why is this happening? Become aware. When your emotions are pulling you all over the place, and you're like, what the f why am I doing this? Become intentional. And when your mind starts negotiating about with the future that you said you said you said you wanted, you said it.

Remember what's non-negotiable pain, persistence, awareness, intentionality, non-negotiable. Do not waste the pain. Because if you don't waste it, I promise you is going to pay you back in wisdom and capacity and strength and growth. And we don't get to choose the pain that life gives us, but we do get to say what the pain will produce in our lives.

And that's where your power is. It was in the pain. So no matter what you've gone through in life, no matter the trauma that you've endured, no matter the situations that you've gone through, even through that, you still, still have the ability to turn that pain into your power. So go do it. And you don't gotta tell nobody.

You ain't even gotta tell me. Just go be living the living embodiment of the transmutation of pain into power, and you will become a vessel, you will become a light, you will become a beacon, a source of inspiration to that next person who's watching you. So go, go and do it, and as always, you know I wish you nothing but the best on the pathway to your results.

Don’t Waste The P.A.I.N.

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