Invite Your Pain to Tell You Its Story

Pain has a story as its source and center. Listen and let it be told.

I am all about consciousness--being aware of myself and how I am creating what I'm experiencing. I don't do New Age or any other kind of religious rituals. I've simply known that I've always had within me all the answers needed to navigate my life, and that I didn't need special crystals, symbols, tinctures, gurus, doctors, medications, meditations, prayers, etc. to do it. I just had to get quiet, be open, allow and listen and feel...and accept full compassionate responsibility for my entire life.

There is no blaming anyone or anything. There is a whole lot of understanding of what it's been like to be a blind-to-who-I-am, all-alone, scared Little Human just trying to survive and get some semblance of control in a tough, often cruel world. None of us humans are born sinners.

We all need a soft and sacred space to land, to balance, to regroup. And...we are the best ones to practice kindness with oneself. When kindness starts at home, it naturally spreads into our world.

The gift of the story of pain: 

What am I feeling ashamed of, guilty about, angry or self-pity over? 

Am I feeling worthless? 

Do I doubt myself?

I am coming from the standpoint here of "If it's in my life, I put it here. It's serving me on some level. I'm getting some sort of benefit from it...and...I am the only one who can un-create it."

Every pain I've ever had has had a story to tell me. Many of them are shared throughout this blog. Often they were stories I was afraid to even look at, for fear I wouldn't look very good in them. I may have done something I felt was horribly wrong that I couldn't possibly make amends for and save face in, ever recover from.

I had to be open to letting all those horrible memories and thoughts be let loose--to feel it all.

Forgiveness--ultimately gratitude--comes from the Soul's perspective, not the Little Human. 

The temporal Human facet will find it difficult to forgive from its limited perspective. We each need our eternal divinity--our expanded I am that I am self--to have the grander, broader perspective in order to see any experience our human has as a gift to its soul. 

How do I find it? It's always within me--it's been here all along--I just had to remember I could tap into it. The warm and tinglies, the sense of gratitude for everyone and everything lets me know I'm hearing my soul's voice. It won't have me harming anyone or anything.

Stories--not boring textbook facts and details--help me understand with compassionate wisdom all my experiences.

Leave the smart phones and computers for a bit. Go for walks in nature. Be with your pets, but not other humans. Take a bath, sit on the toilet, lie down and close your eyes, wash dishes by hand. Do whatever it takes to put yourself at ease and give yourself a safe space for a few minutes. 

Take a few deep breaths: Inhale through your nose and draw the breath in down to your diaphragm beneath your lower ribs to the count of 4. Hold each breath there for 4 counts. And then exhale to the count of 8 through your mouth.

Feel into your body. If you feel any sort of pain, take a deep breath, OPEN yourself up, and boldly follow the pain to its source and center. Take another breath and ALLOW yourself to experience the pain fully: Is it sharp and piercing? Is it dull and throbbing? Just dive in and feel it!

If you're willing to feel it through, the pain you experience will tell you its story of something you're hanging onto that is no longer needed in your life. You can let it go. Go ahead and sob and cry, and remember to hold and comfort yourself--be the best unconditionally loving friend you can be to yourself.

Remember that no matter how bizarre we may have acted at some point, we all are just doing the best we know how in any moment...

and sometimes we are overwhelmed-with-it-all Little Humans just trying to be, and be okay with ourselves.

We have a tendency to focus only on the negative aspects of the baggage we haul around, but when I've allowed the pain of those once shameful moments to tell its story, there was always so much more going on than that little slice. Allowing the story to be expressed is inviting my soul's perspective to come through.

There really is no right or wrong healing modality--it all depends on how YOU feel about it.

When I allow the pain I experience to tell me its story, sometimes I'm released from it instantly, sometimes not. I may have it for awhile, depending on how it's serving me in my life. Sometimes pain allows me a kind means of staying out of a situation.

I'm not completely adverse to using some sort of pain remedy for a temporary time, especially if it's so intense I feel crazed and can't seem to even take a proper breath to begin to center myself. I've learned that if something like a bit of advice or a type of homeopathic, alternative, or modern medicine or therapy is readily at hand--to consider it, feel into it, and use it if it resonates with me to do so. 

As for mood-altering substances, prescription or otherwise, I've just never cared to even mess with most of them. Though, I do enjoy a glass of wine or alcohol once in a while, but getting a buzz hasn't been my goal. People who have used such substances to control their emotions appear flat-lined emotionally, slurry-worded, zombie-like to me. I feel an energy drop when I am around them. They are not present. It feels like they are wasting their gift of life, trying to escape from themselves. I don't even care to interact with them anymore. Not at this stage of my life. We all have too much going for us--it's just a matter of perspective about your stories.

Related Posts:

When In Pain, Just Breathe This is the story about how I discovered this gem of a tool to use and release the pain from my energy body.

FEELING Pain Through and Out

Our Distorted Reality Due to the Sexual Energy Virus

Both the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine exist in every individual, regardless of gender.

We all have two hemispheres of the brain. The left brain is logical and present and makes choices. It sees itself as a separate entity--as a human being. The right brain is intuitive and is connected to our "I exist" pure consciousness self. It knows itself to be Divinity.

The sexual energy virus affects both men and women--it's a LIMITATION of AWARENESS, and NO ONE IS TO BLAME.

How can you hold accountable someone who isn't aware of why they act and feel the way they do? They just act, sometimes even knowing that it's hurtful and not the solution. They're feeling stuck in an identity, a role they haven't realized they can leave simply by choice. They believe they are just a Little Human trying to survive in a tough world of competition.

The following is simply a fictional story to help understand the core conscious awareness that created our limited reality world:

The Feminine became the Best Friend Supporting Actress, instead of the Leading Lady.

The Divine Feminine blamed herself for a creation that went awry. There were all-out wars--external grabs for power--among her lost and alone-feeling angelic children as they tried to return home to the Eternal Source from whence they came. Their energy feeding and stealing almost brought Creation to a standstill--to a collapsing in upon itself. So she gave up her freedom to choose for herself and gave it to the Divine Masculine.

With that choice it manifested here on Earth as women having a 2nd class status. Woman became the weaker perceived sex--and she became passive and subjective to men. She let men make the decisions.

She feels and empathizes and nutures and supports. She's connected to the right side, the intuitive side, of the brain. She knows the importance of love. She's compassionate and loving--all-accepting--no matter what, especially with her family.

The Masculine kept looking outside of himself for love and acceptance.

The Divine Masculine then carried the weight of responsibility of making choices, not just for himself, but also for his Feminine partner. He's unaware of the importance of loving oneself first, instead of trying to gain the approval and respect of others.

He's in control--the Divine Feminine gave that to him when she made him the decision-maker for herself. This manifests as men being the ones to generally just take action, Men are movers and the shakers in this world--aggressive.

He feels strongly the burden of providing not just for himself, but for the women and children in his care. He sees them as his possessions. He feels they are reflections of himself--of his success or his failure.

He's connected to the logical, reasoning left hemisphere of the the brain and doesn't relate to that feeling stuff. He's dependent on his female partner to handle his feelings and emotions. He's not aware that he, too, has a feminine side of the brain to tap into--that he, too, can tap into feeling into what it's like to be in another's shoes.

He's passion unleashed without realizing right away what he's radiating because the woman is taking the hits for him--and when we keep picking up a child before he can fall, he never experiences the outcomes of his choices. They're watered down and distorted by the time they get back to him.

This is not how it's meant to be, for it's an imbalance in two equally important, yet different facets of Creation--Passion and Compassion.

The Dance of Passion and Compassion.

Passion is what consciousness radiates out, and compassion is the energies manifesting in service to that radiated passion. We each need to know what we're radiating and manifesting from that so that we can make clear choices for our created reality. We need to step out of each other's way and allow each other to experience his/her creations unadulterated.

Essentially, what's happening now is we're allowing the once "supportive woman behind every successful man" to step forward to into full and equal, though different, partnership. It's a win-win situation for all.

The abuse will become obsolete when each Victim stands free within herself enough to address her Abuser so, "Thank you for playing the part of abuser/betrayer because I discovered things in and about me I wasn't aware of before our Just Pretend Game. Now I've had enough of that old game. I'm setting clear Boundaries of Love--I'm done allowing you to abuse me. No more! Stop the abuse, or you're free to leave me--those are your choices." 

Moment by moment, the abuse will gradually, freely die out when each victim chooses to stop playing victim and instead play the role of sovereign master and creator of his/her own life.

I realized that the ultimate victimhood story ended for me when I put my foot down and decided that choices made by others need not affect me. I was done playing victim because of another's decision...after all, this is my personal world, my sovereignty, my domain.

...and so it is with you. You're free if you open up and allow it. 

Be the star of your own reality!

Passion and his beloved Compassion

glide a path together--

sometimes breaking apart,

sometimes framing the other, heart-to-heart--

waxing and waning

'round the floor of the Flagstone Terrace.

They dance through the annals of the ages,

the picture book that is my mind,

to the wildly whirling-twirling,

strangely peaceful dervish

that is my heart,

in rhythm to the song

that is my soul.

With love,

Words and Music by Penny Lewton Binek

The Passionate Narcissist and Its Compassionate Victim

On some level, we all seem to know that this is all just an act--a game of "Let's Pretend."

How many times have I asked someone about themselves, and I stand there listening to them blather on about this and that about themselves while my own inner conversation with them sounds like this: 

Ahem! What about me? Do you even care about what I'm thinking and feeling, or am I just a giant ear with lips that speak all the right responses that appear to make you the center of my attention? Actually, I can tell you don't care one whit about me except for whatever attention you can get from me...I know this because I'm doing the same thing with you. 

And I blab on and on with the best of them about my own life, and my cats' latest antics.

You and I do care about each other, but when I look at it honestly, I see my caring is to the extent of how whatever happens with you affects me. I hurt seeing someone else in pain, and I feel loss when they cross over. Road kill still makes me wince. I truly don't wish anyone harm--I am benevolent after all--so dark deeds and energy-feeding are not even an issue here. I wish you all the best and most joyful of lives. My point is about how politically correct it is to appear to care, when basically what's really happening is I'm wondering if I'm acting the role of "caring person" convincingly enough.

I know all this sounds cold and hard-hearted. My old parent-teacher-preacher tapes are recycling through my mind yelling at me that that's no way to be. You're being selfish and self-centered, Penny. But I didn't get to where I am--finally pretty okay with myself--without being honest with myself. Tip-toeing around, trying for some warped idea of perfection doesn't cut it. I've learned to temper it all with compassion. I always get to compassionate wisdom in the end of these runs. 

Lately I've been feeling irritated by what I realized was a narcissistic, self-involved-exclusion-to-all-else behavior in the people and world around me. I was ticked off--and that's putting it nicely. I was even experiencing it with my beloved cats--my absolute best friends.

And then I had a shift in perspective. Instead of playing Victim to the other party in these seemingly it's all about me and you don't matter, one-sided interactions, I asked myself, "What gift are you bearing me by being exactly the icky way you are? What aspect of myself are you reflecting back to me that I'm having such a struggle with?"

I hit the clarity jackpot with those questions. Of course, I was internally struggling with the narcissistic aspect of myself! Turns out, my soul is quite a bit of a narcissist, according to the human definition.

My soul--my pinpoint of awareness that I exist--is ETERNAL, and because of that, my divine self knows that no matter what I experience, I will always exist. My soul has no knowledge of consequences or cost. It loses nothing and constantly gains in wisdom and compassion through all its human experiences. It's simply passionately discovering all that I am, and in this Earthly reality, it's using a highly sensitive and feeling temporary human costume to do so. My human form is pretty much a robot--a means to an end--and when it's worn out, it's easily replaceable. My soul delights in me--its humanity--and celebrates me and all our excursions--but I finally now understand that it doesn't mourn me because it never loses me, not really.

"God doesn't love you."

So, my soul is basically a big ol' narcissist. It doesn't care about me or what happens to me. It didn't even love me in the beginning of all this, because it didn't know what love was or that it even existed until it was discovered through its human vehicle. Humans discovered love--this ability to care for and about others--to feel loss. The unconditional love a mother has for her child comes to mind. That old adage seems more profound now: It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. 

Humanity is the compassionate and loving dance partner of its passionate soul. We humans are the experiencers for our souls. We lay down our lives for the soul. Because of the extent to which we had to lower our vibration to take on a biological body, our human facets lost sight of our higher vibrational selves for awhile. We were like the bridegroom in the Song of Solomon, searching all over outside of ourselves for our elusive bride, that missing something, only to realize she was within and always with us through all our trials and joys.

"God loves you."

I remember at the tender age of nine overhearing my grandpa tell my beloved dad that he didn't care about him. Granted, that was all I heard so it probably was perceived on my part totally out of context--but it impacted me hard at the time because it colored how I saw my grandfather. Not in a good way either, because no one was going to say that about my dad and not feel the repercussions! I'm telling this particular anecdote because I realize that my limited awareness at the time equated "God" with being a man--a father figure--and it just went against everything I understood about God and his son and their supposedly loving relationship. Wasn't God supposed to love you unconditionally and care about what happened with you?

I know someone telling you, "God loves you," is supposed to make you feel better, but I've heard it in the midst of heated arguments being thrown out as a desperate means to get the last word in--and in such a way that says, "I don't love you, but there is someone or something else out there that does." It's a bit of a slam, if you ask me.

Frankly, I guess I don't need "God's love." 

The Passionate Narcissistic Soul vs. the Compassionate Empathetic and Loving Human Victim

Everyone and everything around me has been reflecting back this narcissist soul vs. its human victim conflict within me. I have felt this inner revulsion at the word narcissist for as long as I've known the meaning--but not because of it being a reality. I never liked hearing anyone being labelled a narcissist--it's a crappy thing to do to anyone. To me, it was slamming someone in one hell of a jail cell with no hope of growth beyond.

From  the standpoint of: If it's in my life, then I put it there, and I'm the only one that can un-create it--I need to be aware it's there and understand what benefit I'm getting from it being in my life.

Every time I incarnate into a human form, I'm sacrificing my human self to my soul's passionate desires. Most of the lifetimes, I've been unaware of this. I've experienced awful, painful, gritty and sensually traumatic acts--and committed some of those same acts against others. All for the joy of my soul's passionate quest to know thyself. Is it any wonder then that after so long and so many lifetimes of trying to simply survive in such a cruel environment that I might, as a human victim of it all, fall out of trust with myself--with my own soul?

So, all these years of deep and profound introspection, all these words written, have been about learning from the human standpoint, to truly love my own soul--to care about my own narcissistic self.

I am a Body of Consciousness: A Soul, a Human and Master (the Observer who distills all the wisdom from all the experiences). Instead of keeping them separate, I need to perceive it all as one. That way, I have it all...

I've come to the conclusion that I really don't need my soul to love me. It delights in me and accepts me without judgment. I'm celebrated at every turn, and I do know that my soul experiences gratitude for all its human has experienced for it. To the soul, there really is no such thing as forgiveness. Forgiveness is but a human stepping stone to the soul's eternal gratitude--a profound gratefulness for all parts played, whether right or seeming all wrong. Maybe, just maybe, we're now on the same page. 

As for this human facet? It's been put through the ringer lifetime after lifetime as the Experiencer for my soul. She's felt so separate--so alone. It feels like it's time to quit trying to monitor and control her. She's no sinner. She's a gift, and it's time I love my human self from that respect. She came in with a limited awareness of who and what she is. She's died and been reborn many times over. She's played the good parts and the bad. She's been terrified and was just trying to survive and handle things the best she knew how. She's explored the heights and the depths of this thing called Love. Just like Job in The Old Testament, she's experienced loss of everyone and everything, over and over and over again.

Through it all, she blessed my soul with these amazing, sensual experiences of love and empathy, along with wisdom and compassion. And it's time for my soul and wisdom (Master) to step up and not let her feel so alone and like such a loser. It's time for me, the human capable of it, to love all of human me...truly.

Who'd a thunk it? I am a narcissist...and I'm okay with that...I'm actually chuckling at a the very idea of it...because, hey, I'm a compassionately loving human, too, discovering what it's like to fall in love...with me...

and ALL that I am!