Composting Pain Into Beauty

I got challenged. Again.

I turned it into something beautiful and creative. Again.

And now, you’re reading it.

This reflection is being born in real-time as I process several situations that feel heavy and painful.

In the past, moments like this would have me sitting in a dark corner of my inner world, cut off from life.

Not anymore. And it doesn’t have to be that way for you, either.

You know the feeling when something makes you so sad it makes you want to cry?

(Hopefully, you let yourself cry generously — we just talked about how freeing that is with

Kelly Flanagan

during our last Human Hour.)

And then after the cry, you feel lighter and calmer, right?

I’ve found a complement to the cry. A way to move those emotions into something creative, beautiful, and deeply nurturing.

It’s next-level self-care.

You can guide your energy to fuel the creation of something beautiful while you’re navigating difficult moments. It’s not about distracting yourself from the pain. It’s about channeling that ache into something heart-nurturing.

I’ve trained myself to see that potential while I’m in it. So I don’t have to just live through it or suffer through it. I move through it in a way that changes my inner experience.

It feels like the healthiest, most caring way to navigate and process pain.

If you’ve seen my work, my art, my writing, some of it has been born from this alchemy. And because challenges are inevitable… for everyone who lives a human experience, I never run out of material.

So, in a strange way, I’ve come to love it.

It feels loving.

And I love what emerges on the other side.

And now, even you get to take something from it too.

You are not what happened to you.

You are what you make out of what happened to you.

Here’s my question to you:

What’s growing from your challenges?

How could you compost them into something beautiful?

What kind of unique-to-you beauty might be waiting to be created because of your pain?