Got Pain?

Got Pain?

Lie down. 
Close your eyes. 
Take a deep, down-into-your-belly breath:

FEEL into it...

EXPLORE the pain...

Pain is a sensual experience. If you try to avoid feeling it, that will prolong your suffering of it, because you're already in the experiencing of it. If you get out of your way, and ALLOW yourself to feel all the sensations of it--breathing it in and through and out, while exploring all your feelings, thoughts and emotions while in it--you'll FLOW it through and out of your reality much easier and quicker. You'll heal faster.

I often focus in on feeling into the throbbing, the ache, or the piercing, stabbing, burning, tingling--and I make the conscious choice to follow that pain to its source and center. Even if it makes my breath hitch--I take another breath and choose to feel into the hitch. Just dive in there and feel it! It actually can't hurt you any more than it already does. Just give yourself a SAFE SPACE and TIME to FEEL IT THROUGH.

We often think of pain as something bad, to be avoided. Look at the plethora of treatments and drugs humans use to try to handle and control pain. But look at the gift of a human who can feel pain. Paraplegics who've experienced the loss of feeling in their limbs would probably love to be able to feel the sensation of that doctor pricking his finger or toe. Being able to feel pain means we're also alive! Numbing a pain--physical, emotional, mental or otherwise--keeps it in place and the pressure builds from it not being allowed and released. It gets worse. Instead, KEEP FLOWING...

I unconsciously grabbed the barrel of my very hot curling iron a couple of days ago. I'm in a very different place now where I didn't berate myself for being stupid. That's the first thing I would have done in the past--I would have judged and cussed myself out for being such a mindless idiot. I knew it happened for my personal enlightenment, for my own freedom from an old consciousness approach--and I made the decision, then and there, to see it through with compassion for myself.

Anyway, I looked at my three very red fingers and noticed a blistering starting to appear so I plunged my hand under the cold water in order to stop the heat--and I kept it there until I got it cooled down. I knew I was putting off feeling it, but I also knew it was going to hurt eventually, and I was choosing to experience the whole thing consciously. After all, I was already immersed in the whole experience. I couldn't turn back time and undo the deed. I managed to curl my hair and fix lunch without using that hand too much. I even broke down and asked my husband to take care of washing the dishes for me.

Afterwards, I grabbed a throw and I layed down on the couch, closed my eyes--and feelingly explored the sensations. I didn't put anything on it--not even lotion or medications. I simply felt it--the white-hot prickly-tingly sensation similar to how it felt when I was a kid and my fingers and toes warmed up after freezing while out sledding. At a certain point--freezing and burning pretty much feel the same, or so it seems to me.

On into the evening, I felt the pain every now and then, but it had already dissipated quite a bit--even to the point that my warm bath water didn't hurt as badly as it had with burns in the past.

By the following morning, the redness had mostly faded, the skin was a bit dry, but none of it was uncomfortable anymore. I could fully use it once again. Today--two days later--I can't even see or tell that I burned it. I used to have scars for weeks on my neck from curling iron burns.

Now, this whole insight on pain--I've had for well over a decade--and I use it all the time. I've moved a lot of pain through over the years. Medications no longer work for me--I just end up stuck in the pain, along with more side effects and other symptoms. I've found it works best to just get out of my own way, and immerse and feel and explore the experience through. Don't be afraid to cry--tears can actually help flow the energies.