WHEN YOU ARE IN PAIN

When you are in pain— sadness, anger, self-blame, shame…,

 remember that there is absolutely no expectation that this moment needs to be anything other than what it is. 

You do not need to be happy.

Or have a ‘good day’.

Let go of any need for perfection, for things to go your way. 

You can be angry, disappointed, frustrated and lost.

You can wish for your pain to pass.

Whilst you wait, you may summon distraction, gratitude, affection, relaxation- anything that you can scrape off the edges of your existence for a company. 

Until, suddenly, the pain goes away.

Phew, you have survived this another one. 

And you notice that you have been training your emotional muscle all these time.

You get better and better at sailing through, each time a little more skilful. 

Even in the bleakest hour, you are more able to hold things in perspective,

Remembering that this episode, like all the other ones, will end. 

I cannot promise you a pain-free future

But I can guarantee that nothing ever stays static.

Your pain will pass, and it has the power to transform you. 

When you temporarily lose sight of that light in the end of the tunnel, 

The Universe will hold it for you. 

Most people carry that pain around inside them their whole lives, until they kill the pain by other means, or until it kills them. But you, my friends, you found another way: a way to use the pain. To burn it as fuel, for light and warmth. You have learned to break the world that has tried to break you.
― Lev Grossman

TODAY’s EXPERIMENT: MIND-BODY CONNECTION

Use a pen or a pencil to draw the outline of a body.

Then, take a minute to focus on what is causing you emotional pain- anxiety, sadness, grief, shame, etc.

Then tune into your physical body, consider if you could locate it as a tension, pain or discomfort.

Draw it in the body outline- pick a colour and a shape, or a symbol.

Witness the visualised form of your emotional pain. Does it surprise you? Does this change anything?

Contemplate how, while you could locate the unpleasant feeling in your body, you are not ‘in pain’. You are bigger than the pain.

It is a transient visitor, however inconvenient, it does not have the power to consume you.