Pain is an Opportunity to Change.

I remember sitting in the office of my Manhattan Therapist, 5 years after my brother died, and telling her that I believed that the amount of pain you have in your life will be equal to the amount of joy you have in your life. The pain helps you earn the joy and the pain helps you appreciate the goodness, and the pain is an opportunity to change.

The pain is a gift wrapped up that demands from you .... "it is time to change who you are and it is time to, ultimately, change your entire life." When the pain is great enough - you will be forced to change in more ways then one.

My mentor called me at 7am and said "I know what the Creator was thinking the day before he took your brother Daniel. The Creator saw that your family was happy but he saw a window in time and if he took your brother from you - in that moment - your life would drastically improve for the better."

This is a very deep concept.

My mentor was sharing with me a powerful secret about the cause and effect of life. My mentor was saying that when my brother died, the pain was so great, that automatically the potential of Light that could be revealed in my life was SO much more than if my brother had just continued to live in the physical with me. So the Creator took Daniel.

When there is great pain ... you are forced to change ... and when you come out the other end ... your happiness, love, and appreciation for life will be so much greater and stronger than if it had never happened in the first place. God taking my brother's life was the greatest gift because it opened up a world of ultimate appreciation and love for this life.

We must strive to reach a place where we welcome all the pain and all the challenges because we know they will turn to be great gifts.

There is a story...

Tooth Decay

"Have you ever had an awful toothache? Remember your discomfort. Recall the fear of going to the dentist. Remind yourself of the needle that shot Novocain into your gums. Evoke the unsettling sound of the drill. The pain of a severe toothache coupled with an hour in the dentist's chair is not a pleasant experience. With that in mind, I'll ask you this: Is it safe to say that you possess within you a desire to not experience an excruciating toothache. I think it's accurate to suggest that all of us have this same desire. But now answer this next question. Were you at all aware of this desire before I asked the question? Your answer is most likely no. Odds are, you weren't thinking about your desire to not have a toothache before I brought up the subject. You were not consciously experiencing the fulfillment and the peace of mind that goes with having a mouth free of pain. Do you know why? This particular desire was already satisfied. You didn't have a toothache, and thus your desire to not have a toothache was fulfilled 100%. This is why you were not even aware of it."

When you go through ANY kind of pain ... after the storm ... you come out with such a rich appreciation for the good in this world ... and on some level both small or great ... the pain has given you an opportunity to change ... if you took that opportunity!

If you or someone you love has lost a loved one & would like to schedule a complimentary 40 minute session. Please contact 917-828-0297.

You may also call the above number to schedule me as a key-note speaker at your next event.

Work Hard With Love.

My teacher yelled in class ...

"Work hard with love because that is how you sweeten the bitterness."

Achievers who lost a parent early in life. The link between loss & greatness.

Taken from Don't let death ruin your life by Jill Brooke.

Political Figures who lost a parent early in life:

Alexander the Great

Mark Antony

Tony Blair

Simon Bolivar

Guy Burgess

Aaron Burr

Julius Caesar

Caligula

Catherine I

Neville Chamberlain

Salmon Chase

Chiang Kai-shek

Winston Churchill

Claudius I

Henry Clay

Cleopatra

Grover Cleveland

William Jefferson Clinton

Oliver Cromwell

Jefferson Davis

Abba Eban

Elizabath I (England)

Alexander Hamilton

John Hancock

Hannibal

Benjamin Harrison

Rutherford Hayes

Henry VIII

Adolf Hilter

Ho Chi Minh

Richard Holbrooke

Herbert Hoover

Sam Houston

Harold Ickes

Ivan IV the Terrible

Andrew Jackson

Thomas Jefferson

Benito Juarez

Kagawa Toyohiko

Jomo Kenyatta

Genghis Khan

Nikita Khrushchev

Kenneth Kuanda

Robert E. Lee

Vladimir Ilych Lenin

Abraham Lincoln

Slobodan Milosevic

James Monroe

Napoleon Bonaparte

Gamal Nasser

Horatio Nelson

Nero

Eva "Evita" Peron

Peter the Great

Maximilien de Robespierre

Eleanor Roosevelt

Franklin Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt

Alfred Smith

John Smith

Sen Olympia Snowe

Joseph Stalin

Queen Victoria

George Washington

Roger Williams

Religious Leaders & Philosophers who lost a parent early in life:

Saint Augustine

Buddha

Albert Camus

Confucius

Charles Darwin

Mohandas Gandhi

Pope John Paul II

Mohammed

Friedrich Nietzsche

Plato

Jean-Paul Sartre

Artists, Writers, Musicians who lost a parent early in life:

James Agee

Steve Allen

Hans Christian Andersen

Johann Sebastian Bach

Francis Bacon

Baudelaire

Ludwig van Beethoven

Cate Blanchett

Charlotte Bronte

Emily Bronte

Mel Brooks

Dame Barbara Cartland

Ray Charles

Mary Higgins Clark

Sean Puffy Combs

Joseph Conrad

Dante Alighieri

James Dean

Daniel Defoe

Edgar Degas

Eugene Delacroix

Benicio Del Toro

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

George Elliot

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Desiderius Erasmus

Eric Fischl

Helen Frankenthaler

E.M. Forster

Robert Frost

Thomas Gainsborough

George Gordon, Lord Byron

Kelsey Grammer

Joseph Heller

Alfred Hitchcock

Victor Hugo

Aldous Huxley

Samuel Johnson

Immanuel Kant

John Keats

Larry King

Nathan Lane

John Lennon

Jerry Lieber

Madonna Ciccone

Thomas Mann

Somerset Maugham

Paul McCartney

Herman Melville

H.L. Mencken

Michelangelo

Charles Mingus

Moliere

Marilyn Monroe

Thomas More

Rosie O'Donnell

Dorothy Parker Edgar Allan Poe

Anothony Quinn

Jean Racine

Raphael

Paul Revere

Julia Roberts

Jean-Jacques Rosseau

Bertrand Russell

George Sand

William Saroyan

Franz Schubert

Martin Short

Gertrude Stein

Stendhal

Tom Stoppard

Harriet Beecher Stowe

Barbra Streisand Pyotr Tchaikovsky

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

William Thackeray

Leo Tolstoy

Mark Twain

Voltaire

Richard Wagner

Virginia Woolf

Orson Welles

Edith Wharton

James Whistler

Theodore White

Elie Wiesel

Oscar Wilde

William Wordsworth

Emile Zola

Scientists who lost a parent early in life:

Sir Joseph Banks

Robert Boyle

Sir William Bragg

Sir Thomas Browne

Henry Cavendish

Nicolaus Copernicus

Marie Curie

Rene Descartes

Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington

Sir Francis Galton

Sir Andrew Huxley

Antoine Lavoisier

Gottfried Leibnitz

Sir Isaac Newton

Blaise Pascal

Hermann Rorschach

If you would like to know what age a specific famous person's parent died you may email me at mkboehmer@gmail.com

"Work hard with love because that is how you sweeten the bitterness."

I am getting ready for a Trip ...

Will post again once I return in August. Hope everyone is enjoying Summer!

Average will never rise above Average.

"Average will never rise above average,

but extreme darkness carries within it the potential to see its darkness and change."

A few days ago I read this story...

A women during her pregnancy was told "You are carrying two children. One twin is going to be a spiritual giant, and the other is going to be drawn to the darkness."

Upon hearing this news the woman had an astonishing reaction. She was not in the least bit dismayed. She was delighted!

The women was delighted that neither of her children were destined for mediocrity, doomed never to become great. One child was perfect, one totally negative. In their extremes, BOTH escaped the dangers of mediocrity. Both had strong potential to become great.

I love this story. It shows how no matter how dark our lives ... it is a gift because we can use our darkness to rise above being average.

Again...

"Average will never rise above average,

but extreme darkness carries within it the potential to see its darkness and change."

So powerful.

Enjoy the weekend!

Soul-Level Pain

"In order to bring anything of lasting value into this world, we must experience soul-level pain. Pain and joy are two faces of the same coin."

My favorite author writes about how there are really only two types of pain. Temporary pain and deep pain. Temporary pain is embarrassment, humiliation, or shame. Where as deep pain falls under the life-altering category of pain. This includes losing a loved one, surviving a terrible trauma, or losing everything in a natural disaster. In this case, my favorite author explains that without this type of pain at the level of the soul we would lose the one thing that gives life meaning: the opportunity to change.

I find the above to be comforting and inspiring at the same time - especially in the year 2010. To know, with certainty, that the pain in our life gives us the greatest gift - the gift to change who we are for the better. Pain brings us to our next level.

It sounds like a paradox but the amount of pain a person endures and overcomes is equal to the amount of joy and happiness they will have. Pain and joy really are two faces of the same coin.

BeamLight

What is simple is true. I would like to keep my first post simple, so that the truth may shine.

Every single person in this world is given challenges. There is not one person who has not had to overcome something extremely difficult in their life. The purpose of this blog is for it to be a place where we strive to overcome our individual and collective challenges. This is a place where we focus on positive change.

Two of the greatest challenges in my life was dealing with the death of my 42 year old dad and my 17 year old brother.

Did you know that there is a direct link between loss of a loved one and greatness? There will be another post on this in the future. There is also a direct link between the greater the darkness the greater the Light.

"To all those near and far who have felt the ache of a loved ones absence, to those who have felt the pain of loss that is so debilitating you think you can not go on ... until from somewhere you find the strength to put one foot in front of the other and embrace the process ... then the bitter turns slowly to sweet, and you discover that all along it was the Light in the center of darkness."

I would love to hear from people about the various challenges you are working on overcoming in your own life and the ones you would like to overcome on a global level.

This is a blog about being overwhelmed, broken, and rebuilt.

That is why we are here. To rebuild ourselves into the best version possible.