In a gimmicky, lure-in-more-readers effort, I could have written that title as 1 Mind Blowing Sentence That Will Change Your Life, but:

1. who am I to say what will change your life? Who is anybody to claim that?
2. It took most of my life to realize that nothing meant to be requires luring. Work and focus, yes. Taking full responsibility for your true role in every goal based endeavor, certainly. Chasing and luring, no. My role here in writing is to share. Period. Whether that’s to one or one million- the universe isn’t hung up on numbers. (and yes- my human ego often attempts to muddy up my brain and steer me into thinking otherwise, but that’s a post for another day. And as long as I’m spouting truths somewhat incoherently here it must be said that perhaps my declining testosterone and other hormonally reckless menopausal shifts within my body finally made giving up chasing and luring an actual possibility for me, so for that I give thanks. 😉 It really is a much calmer way to live.

As Katherine tells Frances in Under The Tuscan Sun

Listen, when I was a little girl I used to spend hours looking for ladybugs. Finally, I’d just give up and fall asleep in the grass. When I woke up, they were crawling all over me.

So true. And yet, completely off-topic?

As is my way.

Then again

what seems OT in essence may actually be completely ON topic to some because who’s to say what forgotten thoughts or memories may bubble up to the surface of our consciousness due to something we’ve read, heard, looked at, smelled, felt, etc… and bring about timely insight? So to somebody in addition to me, this may not be OT. It’s not for me to say.

That said, you’re here for what I believe to be a mind blowing sentence, so without further ado:

The first time I heard that sentence it knocked my conditioned thinking on its ass. I thought about it so hard that it brought on that finger-in-the-belly-button feeling of disruptive intrusion in my mind. Because my first thought was probably “of course I logically know that” (more on this in my future tell-all book: Confessions of A Former Know-It-All Who Now Knows She Knows Nothing) followed immediately by “Wait. What?”

“Pain is not a punishment, pleasure is not a reward.”

They’re not?

How might this understanding change the way you interpret pain the next time you’re experiencing it?

And pleasure?

If you’ve gone along unconsciously believing that pain=bad and pleasure=good, can you sense a measure of empowerment that may become availed to you through the understanding that what you thought WAS may not actually be as you’ve been led to believe and that all that you’re currently unaware of has the potential to reveal other sources of self-empowerment?

Empowerment is not about knowing everything, it’s about staying OPEN when frankly it may be easier and less scary to cloak yourself in the comfortable familiarity of what you know.

But if we’re open to revelations that have the capacity to blow our minds, we have the ability to rock our world.

And I tend to think that’s why we’re here.

*Please share your thoughts and experiences with this topic in the comments if you’re so led. I find them fascinating.*