Flowing with the Pain

The Union Path Podcast - Flowing with the Pain
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Lately, I've been thinking a lot about pain. I have a complicated relationship with pain.

I've experienced. Plenty of it. More than my fair share? That's not really for me to say.

But there's been a lot. There's a lot for a lot of people. The hard thing... The tricky thing...

The sometimes intractable thing... Is what do with this pain? What do we do when the pain comes up?

What do we do when we feel like we're just carrying around this body full of pain?

What do we do when we see our pain reflected in front of us? In our lives. In our relationships. In our interactions.

What do we do when we see ourselves act out of our own pain? When we're unkind. When we're intolerant.

When we're... a bully. When we're critical, when we're judgmental. What did we do with this?

What do we do with this? Dark energy. That feels like. A burden. A burden that's overstayed its welcome.

And as occupied far, too much of our life. Our time, our thoughts. And our experience.

I've found, and this doesn't feel unique to me. Pain is a wave, comes and goes.

Sometimes it's triggered. By obvious external events. Sometimes it just seems to... mosey on by, by its own.

Squirting me in the face with a squirt gun full of... Who knows what. When it happens, it's deflating.

It feels terrible. It feels like some kind of non-specific illness. Or injury. But the worst part is it can linger.

It can ruin a day. Can ruin a week. It can ruin all sorts of things. And yet. What do we do with it?

If it seems to just come and go on its own and completely run rough shod over whatever's happening. What hope do we have... of it ever being any better?

Is it just time?

Is this a wound that the only healing that can happen as a certain amount of time? That definitely seems to be true. Pain does seem to fade over time.

I think there's more to it than that. I think there's more going on. Frankly. I think pain is largely misunderstood.

I think we look at it as. Some sort of rogue villain. Or, harsh master. That appears from time to time, and completely takes our legs out from under us.

Or has us do things we wouldn't normally do. I believe pain, like any other feeling, is a message, is communication.

It's obscure. It's...very vague. But there it is. It's a message that because of its, lack of obvious clarity, has to be interpreted.

But isn't that true? With all deep wisdom?

Isn't that true with all the big lessons that we learn? The really important things in our life...aren't just handed to us. It actually takes some amount of work.

Some amount of focus, some amount of engagement to actually get and extract the lesson?

I think that's what pain is. Pain is the precursor to growth. Albeit, often an unwelcome one. And definitely often an unpleasant one.

But there it is. Looking at pain through the valence of...growth, learning, teaching...

I found I can have a completely different relationship with it. As a frequent experiencer of pain, for the longest time,

when it would come up, I would just soak it up. I just take it in, take the hit, and try to keep moving on.

I'd apply, all of my force, all of my focus, all of my diligence, towards ignoring, towards pretending,

that this was less of a deal than it really was. Oh, that didn't really hurt me. I'm okay. I'm just overreacting. I'm too sensitive.

They didn't mean it. This was my fault. There may be truth to any, and all of these things.

But the problem is, when we jump to conclusions, we short circuit the lesson. When we try to guess, what something's trying to teach us,

and often latch on to our favorite possibilities out of either convenience, or because if it's some other preferred narrative of ours.

We miss the gift. We move too fast. We land on an answer before we really understand the question.

And then we move forward, cycle repeats, but we don't really seem to move beyond it, do we? Or if we do, it feels like at glacial pace.

So when pain comes up, what do we do with it? How do we rearrange, and reacclimate our relationship towards it?

And instead of, as a terrorizer and tormentor, perhaps it's something a little bit more benevolent.

When the pain arises, it's my contention, it's my belief, that the best thing to do with it

is feel it, is listen, is to just stay in the present moment, because, it's what's happening.

If pain is active, it's too late to prevent it. And I don't know of any good way to immediately shut it down.

So in that perspective, at least in the present moment, we're kind of stuck. But the goal is,

to only be stuck in the present moment. And not be stuck, for longer. Not have the pain keep coming up over and over and over again, but never fully resolve.

Just keep coming up and keep taking those hits over and over again, but never really getting. The value of it.

We take the strain of the interaction with pain, but we never get the reward. It's like we're paying into this investment, and never allowing it to pay off.

Which in that case, it just becomes fairly fruitless spending of time and energy. But if we stay with the pain, if instead of trying to avoid it or rationalize it,

push it away, or make a bigger story out of it, if we don't make this into a story about our past or our future,

but just stay in the right now, if we don't equate pain with some sort of judgment on ourselves,

we just stay with a feeling, if we can stay out of the interpretation while our pain is active, we can allow it to flow.

And it seems like that's what a wants. If pain can have a want. Is to move through us.

It doesn't want to be stuck, it's energy. It wants to move. It doesn't want to be captured. It doesn't want to be stored.

It has a purpose. It has a place it's going. It has an agenda. It has places to go and people to see.

And by us, sequestering it off in our own little containers, we prevent that from happening.

And instead of being a circuit. We act like a battery. And the energy gets stagnant.

It builds and compounds and combines with all sorts of other things. Instead of being far more transient, far cleaner,

of just moving through us. So, how do we actually do this? I'll tell you how I do it, how I try to do it.

I breathe. When pain comes up, I feel it. It usually comes from about the same spot, I know it well.

But when the pain comes up, I breathe into it. The pain rises, I breathe in. I feel it expand and bloom. And then I breathe out.

I don't say any mantras. I don't try to change it. I don't make any judgments about it. I feel it.

I try to stay out of my mind, as much as I can, and stay in the feeling, and just breathe.

And it can be intense, oh my goodness, can it be intense. Like, I'm trying to stand in a tsunami.

But that's the key word, like. This isn't standing in a tsunami. This is a feeling. This feeling cannot kill me.

This feeling cannot physically hurt me. It's pain, oh yes, it is certainly pain. But it is not attacking me. It's a sensation.

And if I can stay with the sensation, I can handle it. No matter how great. I can keep breathing. I can let it build and let it build and let it build.

I don't put limits on it. I let it be what it is. I remove all my resistance from this experience of pain. Because isn't that where the real suffering is?

The real suffering is in our fighting, our resistance, our saying, nah, no, no, no. Not this, that.

What if we just acquiesce? What if we just surrender? What if we just lay all of our tools and strategies and weapons down, and just abide?

This is what's happening. I accept you pain. I allow you pain. I allow you to be what you are, to move through me.

And I have all sorts of reasons. First off. I want to get this over with. And I want to get whatever good can come out of this.

And I know the surest way, to prolong both of those outcomes, is to fight it. I can't.

I like to think I've gotten to a point, where I won't.

But regardless, when I'm letting the pain go through me. When I'm feeling it when I'm breathing into it. I can feel its waves. I can feel its flow.

It's pretty terrible. It's pretty unpleasant. But it's survivable. It's more than survivable, I can come through the experience intact.

I don't have to let it scoop me out. I don't have to let it empty me. I don't have to let it deplete all of my happiness and joy and hope.

I can just let it be. And, you know, what? It does flow through me.

I've heard it said that if we don't resist pain, it tends to run in about a 15 minute cycle.

I think this is probably true with most emotions. I mean, think about it. If you've ever had ecstatic joy, check-in at its apex. And then think about 15 minutes later.

Now the tricky thing is, again, these amazing minds that we have. Of building a story, of integrating these feelings into commentary about ourselves. Of installing it into our definition of who we are. Our worth, our value, our capabilities.

But if we stay out of all of that. No, this is just what's happening right now.

And if I let it flow through me, there will be a right now, usually in about 15 minutes, where this isn't happening, or at least isn't happening so much.

It might always be there, but it's not, at the foremost, front and center of our experience.

So what happens then? Pain comes up. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Flows out. What happens?

It's been my experience. Well, usually what happens is whatever was happening before the pain hit.

Which is a gift. Honestly. The pain comes and goes and basically leaves me where I was, and I keep on going. I'm not put off my course.

My experience in life hasn't been radically transformed through this one experience. I'm walking along my path. I get hit with this obstacle. I pause, let the obstacle pass, and then I can keep moving.

But then the best part, the best part is, from a more calm, less affected state. Then I can look at my pain completely differently.

When it's not in my face, like cymbals crashing in my ears, I can really ask myself, can really ponder, what is this telling me?

What's going on? What is this communication, really? And I sit with that. Sometimes, nothing earth shattering comes to me.

Pain happened because pain happened. Sure I can think of a million reasons, but no big epiphany. But sometimes, sometimes. The epiphany does come.

And the beautiful part is, that epiphany is accompanied by a course of action. Maybe my pain is coming to me because I keep repeating the same patterns that put me into a painful place.

I'm around people that create pain inside of me, or at least trigger pain that's already there. Maybe I'm doing things that are painful.

Maybe I'm holding onto something that just is not serving me anymore, and I need to let it go. But usually with an epiphany, there's a pretty clear something to do, and that's the beauty of it.

By letting it flow through me, by actually listening, by actually feeling, by actually experiencing the pain, I can understand what it's trying to tell me, because I can understand the pain itself.

It's truly is one of those situations where everything is made better through awareness. And everything is it the very least delayed, through trying to ignore.

Pain's here for a reason. It has something that it's trying to do. Or at the very least, it's the result of a set of circumstances.

It's the truth. And when I let it flow through me, I can receive the embedded wisdom inside of it.

I can refuse to let the pain dictate my action, my thoughts, my feelings about a whole myriad of things, most importantly, myself.

Instead, I can use the knowing that can emerge later as my call to action.

As the continuation of the path that I'm on, whether it's a course correction, or it's just a jettisoning of things that are no longer worthwhile or are valuable, and maybe they never were.

But at the very least, right now, it's clear. I received the answer, because I understand the question, and it's clear.

And because I'm not trying to make the pain be any particular thing, I don't force my own solutions on it.

I feel it. I listen. And when there's something to do, I know it'll be clear. I have confidence in my pain.

I trust it. And I allow it to be what it is. And through that allowing I get to a point where I can do what I need to do. Allowing the pain to guide me.