“That’s going to hurt for a long time.”

“I don’t know if he’ll ever recover.”

One hears these words every year at the State wrestling tournament after a wrestler loses an important match.

Some wrestlers do recover from significant losses, and some do not.

The ones that do recover use their pain to motivate them to take action to address an area that needs fixing.

The ones that don’t recover are the ones who do not use their pain to motivate them but rather attempt to hide, diminish, or ignore it.

****

Famous American Actress, Cicely Tyson tells a story,

“I once ran across a young child who did not know who Dr. Martin Luther King was.

You know, when we were fighting for rights,

we did not want them to go through what we had to go through. We were trying to make it possible for them to use their energies and their talents to do other things to help humanity.

And because of that, we left them nothing to fight for; they didn’t understand what it meant.”

****

After my High School wrestling career was over, and I didn’t accomplish the goals I set out to, I vowed I would never let my sons wrestle.

I never wanted them to experience the pain that I experienced from this sport.

I was wrong in my protective thinking.

Pain is invaluable to experience.

Pain is painful.

It is also necessary.

Pain is a motivator for one to act.

Pain is the stimulus of change, improvement, and correction.

Pain is an indicator that something is not right.

Pain forces one to address a situation that needs changing and never repeating.

Listen to your pain,

Absorb it,

Let it soak in.

Then let it motivate you to take the corrective action to eliminate its presence.
________

Pain Is Your Greatest Teacher

Is a chapter from

Wrestling Rules for Life

Which can be purchased at

www.johnapassarostore.com