How do you welcome pain in your life?

Over the past few weeks, I have been dealing with pain as a result of a sports injury that has caused some pain, enough pain to prevent me from doing any of the sports I enjoy (right as the weather gets warmer and it is fun to be outside), yet not enough pain to prevent me from moving and doing the basic movements required to continue life as usual.

At this point, the pain has become bearable, so bearable that often I forget about the actual injury and do a certain movement that causes a shooting pain up my nervous system and reminds me of my fragile state of being human, an aging human that can no longer withhold physical contact in sports.

So, the past few weeks, I have befriended my pain, so much by choosing not to numb it out by pain killers prescribed by the doctors I have seen. This choice not to numb the pain comes with an intention to welcome and live through the wide spectrum of feelings and sensations I have committed to over the past few years of my life, to 'avoid avoiding' the undesirable sensations of life.

I have come to see that this pain is there to remind me not to put pressure or stress on that part of my body, that whenever that pain shoots, it is telling me “Watch out, more of this could make your injury worse”. So, the pain has been my body's innate indicator to my healing progress. The first two days, the pain was so strong that I had to remain lying down, and three weeks later, the pain told me “It is ok, you can go for a walk, you can carry those heavy grocery bags, but running not so much; cycling too soon!" and today it tells me "you can go for a run, but do not go beyond the 5:45 pace."

This experience with the physical pain may not apply to all types of pains we humans experience, especially those with terminal illnesses, sever life-threatening injuries, and so. So I know that the "choice" of numbing the pain, no matter what the approach or substance one opts, is not always a "choice."

And the same applies to emotional pain. This physical pain “hurts” more than the emotional pains we experience in life, simply because it screams louder in our bodies, we can see it on an x-ray, a blood test, and sometimes with our own bare eyes. The emotional pain however may go un-noticed for years, until it asks for the intervention of our body, as it knows that is the only way we can actually hear it.

As my therapist put it to me in one of our sessions when I was finally able to see it “You have been carrying this pain with you since you were less than ten years old. You have been carrying it, unseen, for two and a half decades.”

For years, I was not ready to feel that pain, I was numbing it, distracting myself from it, overcoming it, relying on whatever psychological narratives and emotional “pain killers” I could find or come up with.

So today, I find myself consciously attempting to befriend my emotional pains as well, appreciating them in my life, allowing myself to feel them and learning to welcome them, testing my boundaries and levels of tolerance with them, knowing that I can only take so much of before I have to ask for help, for a pill, or a medical intervention.

In doing so, I wanted to honor the pains in my life and what they have taught me so far, honoring all those who are dealing with unbearable pains and wishing them relief and

Pain is the invitation to the present moment, to the here and now. Pain, emotional or physical, is the best grounding and mindfulness tool that evolution has devised to get us anchored in our physical body, reminding us that, essentially, there is nowhere else but this body to rest in, with every twinge or stab a message or a buzz calling us back to our essence, to our pure existence.

Pain is a family member, a friend, those who show up for us when we are most in need, when we have nothing to offer but our gratitude to be witnessed, to be accompanied, to be taken care of when we are not capable of offering that to ourselves. An unwelcome friend or folk, because they tell this as they are, the hard truth that is sometimes difficult to receive, to accept, to be with, no embellishment or sugar-coating. Pain is the ultimate connector, telling us that we cannot live in isolation, twisting our arm to ask for help, and offer it to those in pain.

Pain is a mentor, a guide, and its lived experience throughout life an apprenticeship into the humility that keeps our conceited self in check. It is a life-long master course on the fragility of our existence, where an invisible virus could keep us bed-ridden for weeks, or a witnessed event in our early childhood can hold us hostage for years. Pain summons us back to the essentialities of life, or existence itself. In deep pain, all the decorations, the wants and good-to-haves shatter, and we remain with the basic needs. In deep pain, we focus whatever we energy we can amass on what matters the most; rest, nourishment, and the minimal movement required such as tying a shoe, or walking the hallway, or expressing how we feel to someone who never heard it from our mouths before.

Pain is our heart’s whisperer, causing us to actually feel what our heart may have been trying to tell us all along. It is our companion to compassion, that helps us understand the suffering and turmoil of others, without which we may not have been able to understand or feel. Our own experience of pain disintegrates the moral superior grounds we climb with regards to others, the judgments we hold, as pain speaks louder than principles and positions. Pain shatters the walls and fortresses we build around our hearts, leading us to forgive those who show up at our doors in our darkest moments, or who stand by our bedside after years of estrangement.

Pain is a call for gratitude, gratitude towards a pain-free life, a life where we appreciate the small things and the important people in our lives that make life meaningful joyful. Pain is an appreciation for the ability to run, to play basketball, to lift weights at the gym; it is a recognition for the kind words of friend, the hug of a loved, the blessing of health.

Pain has no antonym, no opposite, for when present, dominates all other sensations and sentiments, and in its absence, a wide bouquet of colorful joyful sensations become available.

Pain has proven time and again throughout my life, that it is a teacher, that in my debility I have reached the deepest reservoirs of strength, the strongest woven fabrics of community, without which I would continue to roam this planet as a strong confident successful man, disconnected from my own humanity, utterly detached from the humanity of others I have met along my path.

How about you? How do you handle pain in your life?

• Do you find yourself numbing it out, or willing to test your threshold levels of feeling it?
• Do you get curious about the pain in your life, what might be causing it, where is it coming from, and what it might be trying to tell you?

?I invite you to take 10 minutes (and more, hopefully) to reflect upon those questions, maybe even spend time with yourself in the mirror this weekend.

Resources:

• Pain can be beautiful - Youtube Video
• On Pain - Poem by Gibran Khalil Gibran

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About ANMU

Ever since I was a kid, I asked a lot of questions, to the point that my teachers had to complain to my parents, thinking it was intentional to distract and grab attention. As I grew older, I realized that this is how I perceive life, through curiosity and questioning. Today, as a spiritual seeker who invites others to walk this path through my work, I use this space to invite you to ask yourself some of the questions I ask myself.

Through ANMU, I encourage you to gift yourself that time, to step out of the auto-pilot mode, and spend some time "listening" to the answers, to live the question.

To make the most out of ANMU, I suggest you:

• Treat this as a mental spa, try to dedicate 15-20 minutes to read through
• Shield your time from other distractions (phone, email, other screens)
• Sit with the question, perhaps in silence, perhaps with a pen and paper
• Live the question, and always come back to it