strength and pain

I think I always thought that strength would prevent pain from happening. Puffing up my chest, flexing my muscles, surveying my friends/allies... I felt protected.

But now I know that strength doesn't really prevent pain, especially the wounds we inflict on ourselves. Strength can fool me into believing that fable: I'm invincible! But that's just a story, that I want to believe.

What is true? The fake strength actually impedes me. The real strength is to see pain, to feel it, to experience it. 

Wisdom allows me to avoid some pain and entanglements. But the bigger strength is to be able to hold the pains I can't avoid, or the lingering traumas my "stinking thinking" repeats.

Strength let's me go through and with the pain. That's real strength in this uncertain, unsatisfactory world.