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.
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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.