Pain is deeply personal. We often tell ourselves that no one understands our plight momentarily forgetting that we are all humans and experience pain.
In the grip of deep pain, we can’t see into situations as clearly as we normally do no matter how strong we think we are. When we are in pain, no matter the cause, we go into survival mode. We have to consciously focus on things that generally come easy to us.
Pain is deeply personal because so many things trigger it physically, emotionally and spiritually.
There are different levels and types of pain. We are taught to gauge our pain based on our experience with it. To a great extent, we learn how to measure and cope with pain based on the reactions to those around us. Most of us are expected to deal with it and move on.
As parents, when our babies suffer physical pain from teething, we treat the symptoms in an attempt to ease the suffering. We know that we cannot stop or prevent the teething. Some parents do nothing and let the child naturally work through the pain. Babies do survive teething even though we wonder if we can get through it. Babies really are in pain when teething; as a strongly empathetic parent, I treated the symptoms to ease the suffering while understanding that it is natural and would pass soon enough.
Coping skills even if it is avoid and/or deny, overreact, underreact, etc is in my mind a learned response. If our pain is ignored, we learn to ignore it. If overdramatized, we learn to be dramatic. Learning good coping skills is important to learning to live with all types of pain and disappointments.
When living with chronic physical pain, we quickly learn that medicine is more about symptom management and coping than spontaneous healing. The body does the healing even if we sometimes need medical intervention to help it heal faster or as correctly as possible.
Chronic physical pain is very complicated and physicians do not know how to really heal it beyond symptom management. We feel distressed when we are in pain even if it is a nagging discomfort. We begin to focus on the area of injury and forget to focus on things like how we are handling the injury. Doctors know that the pain can be mostly controlled with medication. They also know that the mindset of the patient is an important part of deciding how long the healing will take considering the severity of the injury. Doctors know that some patients will sprain an ankle and keep going until they are forced to stop and notice. Others will crumble and fall, screaming, and kicking from even a minor injury.
To me, emotional and spiritual healing go together. They cannot be seen by the naked eye. This is important if you are trying to handicap park, even with an official plate or plaquard, with an invisible disability. People judge and get angry about it especially if there are a limited number of spaces. I used to explain myself to people. Now I know that I owe absolutely no one an explanation. My doctor issued it to me because I fit the qualifying standards period.
How we judge others that are in pain is highly important? Consider reminding ourselves when others are in pain that we cannot know their personal pain. We only know our experiences with pain. When we expect others to handle their suffering the way we do, we are not considering individual experiences.
Harsh judgements about the suffering of others only add to their distress and get in the way of coping and can slow healing. When the one in pain has to add the feelings others have about their healing process to all that they are already trying to cope with, we increase the burdens of the one hurting. Avoiding critics and hiding their pain to limit the reactions of others can becomes a part of their focus, distracting them from the healing they need to be focused on. Chronic pain no matter the cause takes a lot of focus. Long suffering causes soul pain.
Soul healing is a journey that I take very seriously. There are some pains that just keep coming back no matter how hard we try to let them go. They usually have to do with people and things that we love. We think we are past the old issues then something will happen, PTSD, and we feel ourselves falling back into the pain.
We are all told by so many different sources to try so many tricks to moving through healing. True coping is an individual journey. Many people closest to those in pain feel that they should just get over it and move on. It is usually not that easy if it were so many people would not always be publishing books and writing articles and commentary on it.
Over time, we begin to realize that there are no set answers to fixing these types of problems. Different things can trigger pain like old memories and add new deminsions to how we think about and cope with them. Often the added worry of all the advice given can add more stress and cause the journey begins again, if not as a new journey, but as a new way to seeing an old situation.
Talking to therapist or taking cocktails of antidepressants and pain medicines are actually discovered to be making things worse. The medicines begin to effect other parts of the body that we were not even struggling with in the beginning. It is not also not easy to break free of these medicines. We need to learn or relearn how to reboot our natural healing instincts. They are still within us; we have just lost touch with them.
We need to learn to allow our bodies to rest when it is in pain. Pain is a signal that we need to alter something that is off balance within the body. It takes real time and effort to really get to the root of the problem at hand.
Pain can be triggered by many different things like injury, chemical imbalances, allergies, toxin exposures, and/or deep emotional wounds.
Deep pain can also come from avoiding doing the what is necessary to work through deeply buried emotional hurt. Over time, a broken heart can lead to irregular heartbeats, that cause us to begin to feel drained of energy because the heart is struggling under the weight of anxieties. Resting is good for this type of pain, but it is important to recognize that more is going on under the surface of the pain. Heart conditions can be triggered by subjective issues like grief, anger and a sense of a loss as in a perceived loss of self identity.
It can be hard to try and heal old wounds when others involved are not even interested in trying to figure out the root of the problem much less doing the work necessary to resolve the issues. We can’t fix the problems of others, but we can work on healing ourselves and refining how we chose to respond to life.
I have heard and read that one person can heal a relationship all by themselves. I struggle with this concept personally, as one person can only create real change within themselves. Many people think it is there job to fix others and the put pressures on others to conform to their own standards and ideals. This causes wounds. A great deal of people are talking about soul wounds, but I see very few people really talking about what this actually means or how to really do the work.
I have made it my personal life mission to learn all I can about interpersonal communication, group dynamics and psychology only to discover that to those not interested in self improvement laugh at the knowledge I obtained. We often balk at ideas for change that we have never considered. If what we are doing is not working for us, we must create change even if it means struggling to get to where we see ourselves.
It is not an easy choice to make, but at some point, I had to decide to walk away and let things fall apart whether I liked it or not. I spent untold lost hours procrastinating because I did not want to do the real work. I caught myself living in victim mode. All I thought about was tomorrow I might try again. I really didn’t know what to do to really resolve old issues.
To me it is not enough to just say just get over it and move on. I keep trying, but eventually the old issues reemerge over and over again. Sweeping things aside does not fix the problem. It only makes a future tripping hazard. I try not to lose hope. Things could still improve in the future.
Healing deep wounds can heal us in so many ways. Peace of mind is a priceless and healing gift.
Meditation has helped me a great deal. Some people pray. Prayer is definitely a form of meditation. If meditation and prayer brings you comfort please do it no matter what anyone says to or about you. Some people find solice in exercising. I love walking long distances when I am physically up to it. Find your source of strength to draw energy from. Try not to tell others that your way is the only way. Be understanding of others. Compassion is important as we help each other work through soul healing.
I don’t pretend to have all or any real answers. If all I manage to do is help a few people push past a few more moments of dealing with soul pain then I am pleased.
Soul pain is real. When we feel a forboding and deep sense loss, even if we are not aware of it, we are connected to soul pain. When you have that feeling, stop and write down what you were thinking about before the sensation was felt. Take that thought and really begin to think about what triggered it and what happened in the past to cause that trigger. Take the risk and really look at it and map it back. Once you feel you can see the real issue do the work to resolve it. Often pain can be released by honoring the memory of the trigger and by allowing ourselves to feel the wound, heal it then release it back into the universe. I was surprised at how quickly my life began to change once I started this journey. I have begun to find a peace that I never thought possible. I am changing my energy and I am finally beginning to see real change. My wish is that you too find a way to do the work to heal old wounds and free your energy up to begin again.
Blessed Be Y’all