We often attribute our unhappiness to some kind of misfiring within our souls, as though there is just something so wrong with us that we cannot conform, cannot be okay with things as they are, cannot find our joy no matter how much we try. The truth is that our hearts hurt when they are trying to tell us that this is not who we came here to be. They hurt when they are trying to tell us that this is not who we came here to love. They hurt when they are trying to tell us that there is more for us to feel. They hurt when they are trying to tell us this is no longer how we want to live. The longer they ache, and the less that we listen, we become exhausted. We become lost. We think we do not know what we want, but of course we do. We just don’t feel free enough to wipe the slate clean and begin again. We think the life we chose at 19, or 23, or 31, or 55 has to be the existence we have forever. This was never what our souls intended. We came to find courage. We came to grow. We came to experience something that can only be known in human minds, felt in human hearts, touched by human bodies. We came to be way-showers, change-makers, little lights for all the other souls still wandering around the dark. We came to build into form the essence of who we most essentially are. We came to experience something we never will again. The pain is not a punishment. It never was. It’s just another guide to the horizon, the entryway to the new life, the birthing place of a new version of ourselves, the call to deeper consciousness, the wake-up call for courage and the initiation for change.