The Science of pain
When we are left without choice, we can only surrender as it is surely the most courageous of acts
It seems the world is going through its own crisis at the moment. The other day, at gym, I looked up at the screen and saw Egypt in crisis, Tunisians fleeing for Italy, a cyclone in Australia and half of America underneath massive snow drifts. A little closer to home I have had friends go through massive crisis such as loss of health, loved ones and businesses. Lately I have found clients moving through traumatic experiences. In my own life I too have experienced pain through my own set of upheavals. Ironically I would not have changed a single one of those upheavals knowing now what I did not know then.
Immediately when we feel pain we usually try to find some way to take it away. Mothers since the beginning of time have been giving their children the proverbial bowl of ice cream to ‘make it better’. Sometimes we see there is no bowl of ice cream that is going to make us better. In fact it we may find that no bowl of ice cream, job and even relationship provides the solace we are looking for.
Being ‘with’ it
Many people have chosen this time in humanity’s history to awaken and are choosing differently. For some of us that awakening is being facilitated through loss as we choose to leave those people and things dear to us. For some those people or things are being taken away suddenly and without prior warning. Let me not fool you for one minute; it is scary and it’s okay to be afraid. I have clients who say “but I don’t know what to do” or “I don’t know how to get through this”.
The thing is that you don’t have to “do” anything and that’s exactly the point. You don’t have to ‘do’ anything; you have merely to be ‘with’ the experience. Pain is funny like that; it will follow you around like a shadow until such time as you turn to face it and that is when it disappears. At the very moment you think you might shatter into a million pieces when you feel as though you could just step off the planet or at the very least, out your body, do what it counter-intuitive and step ‘into’ the emotion and just allow yourself to feel it.
Why you don’t have to make it right
These days society is much more geared towards and accepting of success than it is of what we deem the opposite thereof; pain and loss. We think we have to pull it together and make a plan. You can make plans (ask me, I know) until the cows come home but unless you can allow yourself to step into the pain, you will continue to create patterns and circumstances that bring you back to where you are. So what’s taking a day or a week or even a month to stop and step into what you feeling (and I mean really step into it, not just feel sorry for yourself) if it’s going to change your life for the positive ever more.
Developing new patterns
In this time much of our self worth is linked to our success or even just to things going right. If someone’s business is doing well, they are excited and joyful yet when things at work hit a downward turn their shoulders slump, they become agitated or go in recluse often because they feel ashamed.
Sometimes our self worth is challenged to the core when we lose people we love in a relationship. We think I wasn’t enough or perhaps we use arrogance to cover the hurt we really feel.
Unless we allow ourselves to feel and just ‘be present’ in every aspect of our lives, we are only allowing ourselves to enjoy one side of life. I mention the word enjoy, purposefully, here because there is much joy to be found in the freedom of experiencing pain. When we can allow ourselves to just ‘be’ in any situation we find joy in a myriad of places.
Working with the body to shift pain
You see (and I ask some poetic license from the body healers reading this) our patterns are stored on a cellular level. So there is no way to ‘intellectualise’ loss or pain. Even if we feel the emotions of frustration, anger, guilt or hurt unless we turn to feel them, they remain ‘unprocessed’ on a cellular level.
I’m not saying, for one minute, that you have to have a breakdown or need to experience dramatic loss to reprogram your patterns but even just allowing yourself the opportunity, for a few minutes every day, to feel your emotions, results in dramatic change. You will find yourself feeling lighter and more joyful irrespective of the situation. Ironically it is then that you will be able to shape your circumstances.
So for but a moment today, give yourself permission to sit. Just to sit and breathe because as you do, know that life shifts, positively, forever.
Lisa is a holistic wellness coach and founder of Life Inc. She facilitates clients in achieving sense of empowerment and wellness is all aspects of their lives. For more information log onto www.lifeinc.co.za
