Let me ask you, what is the source of your pain? If you say you have no pain, then you are deceiving yourself. Even enlightened masters have pain, as it is part of the human condition. Suffering, they say, is optional. When we resist pain, we suffer. But we all experience pain at some point, usually quite often. But I digress.

Back to the original question: where is your pain? What causes it. Here is what Rumi the Sufi poet says:

“They say, We cannot go barefooted in that courtyard. There is nothing but thorns through there. Love answers, The thorns are inside you. Be silent, and pull what hurts out of your loving’s foot. Then you will see gardens and secluded rose bowers, and they will be inside you.”

Everything is right here in our energy field. Sometimes we say, that person bugs me. Again, the source of that pain is not outside you; but inside you. That person who triggers you is the karmic delivery system and he or she deserves thanks and appreciation, as they are shining a big fat light on your pain so you can heal it.

What we usually do though, is blame the gift. We point fingers, we move away from the person, or criticize the faults of the others. But if you are bugged by someone else’s faults, you also have that fault

Let me repeat Rumi’s quote: “They say, We cannot go barefooted in that courtyard. There is nothing but thorns through there. Love answers, The thorns are inside you. Be silent, and pull what hurts out of your loving’s foot. Then you will see gardens and secluded rose bowers, and they will be inside you.”

Sometimes we come to think that the world is full of thorns and evil people, those who tick us off and make our lives unbearable. But we are the one who is unbearable! We cannot tolerate ourself, but we cannot face that, so we point fingers.

The truth sets us free. Face the pain. Feel the pain fully. Thank those who highlight your stuff for you. If you do not, you will keep attracting other thorns and triggers until you finally get the message and deal with the thorns which are inside you in the form of past wounds, traumas, abuse, and various other pains which again, are a normal part of the human experience. We are here to feel, to heal, to experience.

Rumi also says: “Everyone chooses a suffering that will change him or her to a well baked loaf.”

Our deepest self is constantly co-creating with spirit to bring to us whatever person or whatever experience we need to heal, to grow, to raise our consciousness. Judgment and resistance block the flow and the growth. All we have to do is let go, begin to trust that life will always, without exception, give us exactly what we need to move forward and clear the clutter.

How do we know that what is showing up is part of our path? Because it is what is in front of you! We can stop seeing some things as good and some as bad and begin to surrender to the Tao, the flow of life. We can stop clutching the shore and even have fun flowing with the river of life, welcoming each and every logjam and rapid and obstacle as the gift it is.