Pain is the main reason people come to see me, they want help and direction on how to ease the pain.
What is pain? Academically speaking, it is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli, “an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage”. It is can be rated from 1 to 10 in terms of intensity, it can also be acutely chronic. It is a feeling that can be universal and experienced by humans and other animals alike.
We all know pain so well since we were small children, that we all try to avoid it as much as we can.
Sometimes we feel physical pain, sometimes we feel emotional pain, I know that the more often than not, they go together.
Pain is to be honored, people do not like vulnerability or pain complaints, but for the person who is experiencing it, it is very much real.
The body is talking with us and we need to stop and listen. I always listen to my clients carefully and let them know straight way that their pain is a big opportunity to the birth something great in their lives if they give it a chance. I have seen over and over again that the body has an amazing capacity of heal, this is an unlimited power and we still are tipping the very top of it. There is a lot to learn, but we need to believe and trust in our own.
The process to heal a pain doesn’t need to be a painful one, at least not in my work. Enjoy the journey to heal is as important as be healed. In my work I found myself as a mere channel, helping people to heal themselves. Listen and honor their pain, feel it to the core and let it to go. The more attention you give to you pain more do you empower it, ignoring it doesn’t help either. That painful part of the body or that painful part of your emotional body is hurting, from 1 to 10, but it is just a part of the whole person.
About 3 months ago, I had a very strong pain on the right side of my neck. It start on the base of my skull and behind my right ear running down to my neck until the beginning of my shoulder. It was a very sharp pain and it was present all day long. What I teach to my clients is valid for myself too, I walk my talk. I knew what that pain was, I listen to it. I kept doing my normal day, working, exercising and taking care of it. I did trust it was going to heal, but it was there for a month, which for me was considered it would last forever! Sometimes my faith was weak, and I was wondering if I had a tumor or something really serious, but deep down I knew it was not the case. This pain one day just disappeared, it was just gone. I don’t remember well when and how it happen because I was not paying attention to it anymore.
Accepting the uncomfortable and unpleasant feeling called pain is the first step to heal.
At age of 20, I was involved in a car accident, it was serious and I was badly hurt. I remember the unbearable pain I did feel all over my body, specially at my abdomen area. I also remember people calling my name and they asked me to not sleep, but the pain was so massive and the sleep feels like a warm comfortable bubble I could not resist to go into it, after the first 12 hours I somehow woke up, then spent about more 10 hours doing a lot of exams to find out the extension of the damage and what surgeries I would need. During these awoke hours without pain medication, I would tell the accident story over and over again to anybody who would come close to me, these people were the doctors, nurses and technicians. It was one way to deal with my trauma and pain and to put it out somehow, as a young woman of 20 years old I had no idea what I was doing, but my body knew better. Accident passed, it took 3 months to start to walk straight again, to start swimming again, and one day the pain was gone. It was a big event in my life and the pain was a important part of it.
There were other pains, like child birth, strong and sharp, but that goes away in the moment you get the baby into your arms.
The world is full of pains here and there, we try to avoid it, escape, but I found in my personal life and in my work, that pain is a blessing, if you open yourself to face it than you can use it in your favor.