What is pain? A shadow as in the woodland photograph? An absence of joy or love like a separation? Why do I experience emotional pain and what would it be like to feel nothing but peace? I want you to know this, you are MORE than any pain. Pain is your teacher you don't have to fight against it if you know how to see what is beyond the pain.
I can almost here you asking "If the pain goes away - what would I feel then?" My answer to you is PEACE!
“to arrive in each moment with nothing to be acquired, nothing to be accomplished, and nothing to be resisted.”
The Way of Mastery by Jeshua ben Joseph p.198
I sat in my best red coat, dark trousers, and matching red boots with their low heels (might never give heels up!) I was waiting for the nurse to collect me. The pain in my right hip was unbearable and my back ached from twisting in compensation. I had been X-rayed, pummelled, given pain killers and still it persisted. The final offer today was a steroid to mask the pain.
I waited amongst the warning posters lining every wall. I read posters against smoking, against eating, against drinking. Luckily breathing had not yet succumbed to a poster and I wondered who decided to make our national health vision to be one huge DO NOT.
That is resistance in the making. That resistance is our biggest clue to our pain.
I did take the steroid offered and I walked out of the surgery a new woman. I was also wise enough to know that the reason I had the pain had so far eluded two GP's a consultant and myself. Was it time to check in on the pain? Go deeply into it with my heart, not my head and to see that fear is behind the pain. When we then go into the fear beyond that we feel lightness, peace.
As children, we were taught to avoid pain, just as the posters point to the DO NOT's. That avoidance is resistance and we suffer.
I was in double luck, the steroid worked and the pain did not return because I saw the peace at its core. I am pain free 3 years on, so far.
And then my son died and the pain and suffering was more than I ever imagined.
Heartache is one of the hardest emotional pains to bear. Worse than childbirth, the dentist or anything I have ever experienced. Maybe you can hear the resistance in my words? The loss of a loved one, a favourite pet, and the loss of freedom in war zones show the greatest capacity we have as humans. A capacity to be with pain and not suffer.
When we 'pull together' there is least resistance.
When we share our loss with someone who cares, there is least resistance.
Pain is the body's way of sending us a message about a physical hurt, a grief, all wrapped in fear. An invitation for us to go deeper and inquire.
Fear is the absence of seeing the love we are, just as the shadow is the absence of seeing light. Neither love nor light ever goes away, we block or resist it.
I surrender to my heartache, allow the pain of it to flow through. I cry, I don't hold on to it, don't focus on it .(Oops I sound like the NHS.)
There is only love or resistance to love, we can feel peaceful even in the pain of grief as we see its inner love. Pain and fear increase when we resist, avoid, and imagine the worst.
I still feel grief, but I don't live there. I take each moment and go with the flow of peace and when I suffer, I realise I am scared or worried about something subconsciously. Often its a past memory that highlights my longing to go back in time.
When I feel the heavy drag of suffering I roll with it and when I can I might walk into nature, drink tea, phone a friend, read a book, listen to a drama and write or talk to my pain after that.
I will always feel the physical loss of Ant, although I know his spirit is with me, so I don't have to suffer. Pain is a messenger a signpost to your inner fears
The depth of who you truly are is stunning and far greater than pain.
Please watch this beautiful YouTube video by Gangaji, about the difference between necessary pain and unnecessary suffering. https://youtu.be/siSJgFm8gl4?si=3Y7Asx9tyj4q-O7M
Love Anni x
www.annipoole.com @AnniPoole @Anni Silverdale