Have you had aggression, upset, anger or resignation about pain in your body?
Oh, I have indeed.
That injury from August 2013, to be specific. Where the hamstring blah blah blah.
If you’re new here to my story, the right hamstring got torn off the bone (I did gymnastics, literally) and it was surgically repaired with pins in the sits bone. It rarely stops hurting for more than a few days.
At first I wrote “it never stops hurting” but that’s not true, so I had to go back and change it to “it rarely stops hurting”.
But that’s not really true either.
Once I went almost 3 weeks without pain, I go on my bike or out for a walk every day, I sleep well (so that’s 7 or 8 hours without even remembering it hurts), I’m super into doing The Work with people so I’m working with folks on zoom and it doesn’t even cross my mind when I’m in sessions….
….So yah. Many minutes do not include pain around this injury.
A few weeks ago, a lovely woman shared honestly her jumbled and upset thoughts about her shoulder and arm and radiating pain and came to a powerful thought about it:
This pain is ruining my life.
Woah. That’s a pretty big deal. I think I can relate.
Recently in our online retreat (which was so awesome, I loved every minute of it and all the amazing people who joined to question their thinking)….someone shared about her body pain and the idea that it might last the rest of her life.
I heard her. I have heard that voice in my head saying “this will last for the rest of your life! Never the same again! It’s all down hill from here!”
Who are we without the story of physical pain?
I notice I am not in denial. I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt when it DOES obviously hurt.
But I can see that even with it, as it morphs, fades in and out, turns up the volume, or turns it down….my thinking about it can be questioned.
It’s ruining my life.
Is that true?
For me, not one bit.
The amazing retreat still happened. I learned, sat with the others, heard the beautiful voice of my colleague Tom who has such a fabulous flavor of The Work.
This same pair of glasses can be worn to look at our beliefs about emotional pains that we believe ruined, or are ruining, our lives.
Is it true?
Much love,
Grace