Have you ever noticed how you learned to avoid and resist pain or discomfort by trying to control it, numb it, avoid it or even pretend it’s not there? As a society, we’ve come to the conclusion that pain is wrong, shouldn’t happen or even that pain is unnatural. These misinformed beliefs fuel our resistance to pain and it’s … well … painful. 😣
To be ALIVE means you’ll experience all kinds of emotions, including pain. But by making pain wrong or trying to bury it, you’ll suffer. The truth is, while pain is guaranteed, suffering is optional. Trying to avoid pain in your life can leave you feeling exhausted or frustrated as you attempt to avoid being emotionally triggered.
So many people perceive that pain and discomfort are the enemy that must be escaped or conquered at all costs. The world leads you to believe that something is wrong if pain or discomfort shows up.
✨What if you responded to your experiences of pain and discomfort by listening to them instead of making them wrong and running from them?
✨Life invites you to evolve, and pain and struggle are a part of your evolution.
Can you imagine how your life would be different if you opened to immediately accepting and even listening to the experiences of pain in your life instead of some misguided perception that what is before you shouldn’t be happening? 🤔
Pain changes your focus to your mental, emotional or physical experience. Once it has your attention, you may try to immediately stop the pain or discomfort with pills, alcohol, avoidance, control, sedation, etc. There’s a big difference between avoiding and denying that pain is there versus real freedom from pain.
Pain and discomfort in your mind, emotions and body are calling you to
pay attention to what needs tending to.
As I work with clients, physical ailments are often healed through feeling into and releasing held emotions of stored pain and trauma.
🧚🏻♂️ Pain and discomfort are tools your body uses to get your attention, so you can focus on what needs to be healed. Feeling into mental, emotional and physical pain and feeling into the imbalances you are experiencing can help you restore your inner balance.
- Get comfortable and send any judgemental tendencies out the door for this exercise.
- Take a deep breath and feel into pain you are experiencing.
As you continue to focus on breathing into the pain and discomfort, bring compassion and acceptance to it. Do this for 2 to 5 minutes. - Next, ask the pain, “What do you want me to know?” and then listen. It’s okay if you don’t get an immediate answer. This is a practice, and inner listening is cultivated through practicing. Over time, or perhaps right away, you may hear a voiceless answer, or you may even “know” or get a sense of what your body wants you to know. Stay with it. Keep asking the question along with: 🌾 “What else do you want me to know?”
🌱 “What do I need to change?”
🌾 “What isn’t working for me in my life?”
🌱 “What do I need more of in my life?”
🌾 “What do I need to let go of?” - The key to the above questions is listening. Your body knows exactly what you need to do to heal. Listening provides an intimate connection for you to get intimate with yourself, your wants, needs and desires, so you can heal. As you listen, deep emotions may come up to be expressed. Welcome and embrace them as you would a child who is hurting and just wants to be loved. Do this without judgement and without trying to fix or change what you are experiencing. Welcome any emotions, guidance or thoughts with complete and total acceptance as you witness them with an open heart. 💗
- Accept any and all feelings that come up.
Your feelings may get even more amplified as they are met with compassion and acceptance. Witness your feelings with gratitude that your body knows what it needs to express in order to heal. Trust the pain and the expression of it that is being revealed. The more you can accept and even welcome the stored feelings, the deeper your release will be in this safe place of transformation. - Stay with your breath and this process.
To begin with, you may be startled by the deep release of feelings and emotions. You might even want to back off or shut down your feelings. That is okay. This is a practice. Once you come to know the healing benefits of accepting all feelings instead of shutting them down with judgements of “you’re wrong,” “you shouldn’t feel this way,” etc., you are granted access to deeper and deeper levels of healing that is needed.
Using pain as a tool to heal is an effective and efficient way to move through life. We are invited to accept and surrender the need to pretend that we are in control of life and everything it offers. Some of the most painful times for me have been some of my greatest motivators to grow. I also see it with clients, all the time. I call it the GIFT OF PAIN. 💫
Be gentle with yourself on this journey. It can be difficult and oh so satisfying, too.
