Third Eye on the Prize
Third Eye on the Prize is a poetic, grounded podcast for people willing to stay present when life's waters get choppy.
Hosted by writer and artist Debra Sansone, the show explores presence not as a concept, but as a lived practice under pressure: in moments of unexpected change, parenting, relationship, grief, intuition...even collapse.
These episodes don't aim to soothe or bypass discomfort, but to stay with it long enough for something honest to emerge.
Drawing on storytelling, spiritual inquiry, and embodied attention, Third Eye on the Prize questions easy narratives and spiritual shortcuts, inviting listeners into deeper contact with themselves and the world as it is - messy, intelligent, and alive.
Taking a look at the turbulence happening in the world right now through the lens of presence.
As always: keep your third eye on the prize, and remember, truth is beyond belief.
Third Eye on the Prize
4 Doorways: Pain
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Pain is part of being alive.
Suffering is something we add.
In this final episode of the 4 Doorways to Presence series, we explore the difference—and why pain, as difficult as it is, can be one of the most powerful ways we wake up.
Sometimes pain is the only thing bigger than the ego’s power to keep renewing itself.
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Hey listener. This is the final episode in our four-part series, Doorways to Presence. The previous three doorways were intuition, embodiment, and beauty. Today's episode is about pain. Okay, save the hardest one for last. At first I called this discomfort. And then I thought, hmm, that's a euphemism. Discomfort's a word we use when we don't want to say pain. So let's just call it what it is. We are living things who feel pain as part of the experience of being alive. Sometimes physical, you know, you get anesthesia before surgery or root canal. Other times emotional. Maybe you cry, curl up in the fetal position, drown your sorrows, or throw something. But then there's mental, or what we might call psychological pain. This is uniquely human. Animals have emotions. Anyone with a pet knows this. The dog is ecstatic when you get home from work. The cat asks to play as an antidote to boredom. But they don't have mental or psychological pain. That is a distinctly human thing. We take our unpleasant life experiences, things we wish weren't happening or hadn't happened, and exacerbate them by thinking and rehashing and mental thrashing, creating stories that lead to suffering. There's pain, then there's suffering. This is not a distinction I came up with. It's a central tenet of the Buddha's teachings. Suffering comes from thinking and from a lack of acceptance of what is. Therein lies the central challenge of spiritual work. Seeing myself and everything else clearly and accepting without judging. Simple, but not easy. The first time I went to a silent retreat, I thought, this is like a combination of monastery and insane asylum. Because the craziness of each participant was on display, especially at the beginning. But so was the beauty. And even more striking, the magnificent power of our collective experience. Everyone, whether they talk about it or not, shares a sense that waking up is painful. If you're experiencing pain from a tumor, oh, that's a serious challenge. Or maybe a major financial loss. Or a loss of someone dear to you. Or loss of your home. These are things I know firsthand. About 20 years ago, my marriage was coming apart at the same time. Some intense spiritual awakening experiences were happening. And then came a financial collapse. I lost the home I'd lived in for twenty-five years. So when I talk about pain as a doorway to presence, I'm speaking from experience. But this is also true. We can create suffering from pretty much anything. Minor annoyances, inconveniences, delays, snafuos. But if it's something big, we certainly don't want to pile on extra baggage like why is this happening? What does it mean? How long is it gonna last? I don't deserve this, or I do deserve this because I am so bad. All the endless junk we humans are so good at dreaming of. The situation itself is just what it is a condition arising from causes. Karma is not out to get you. It's a law of cause and effect. We don't need to add extra layers. Think about what animals have to deal with the elements, survival, figuring out how to eat and not be eaten. But they don't sit around thinking about it and creating suffering. Only we do that. So how is this a doorway to presence? This is a very big and deep topic. Pain, in fact, is one of the best doorways to being more awake. Because sometimes it takes the most traumatic, tragic difficulties to actually wake us up. Sometimes it's the only thing bigger than the ego's power to keep renewing itself. We can be more embodied, appreciate beauty, learn to open to our intuition. But sometimes it takes something brutal. A great loss. Think about people with spinal cord injury and paralysis. That's a big loss. From small pain that most of us feel almost daily, to intense, excruciating pain or trauma. In all these variations, from mildest to most severe, it is, like it or not, one of the things that helps wake us up. As always, thank you for listening, whomever and wherever on planet Earth you are. I have a favor to ask. Tell just one other person about this podcast and send them a link to your favorite episode. Until next time, keep your third eye on the prize, and remember, truth is beyond belief.
