Physical accidents, trauma, injury or death all seem to be things most of us do NOT love. Chronic pain, broken limbs, deep back aches, going through chemotherapy, something ongoing that is always there, unpleasant or horrendous, always hurting.
How do we work with inquiry and asking questions like “is it true?” when this kind of stuff is going on? These areas do not seem like ones where I can feel peaceful, accepting, open. Or can I?
Can you imagine the absurdity of saying in your hospital bed when you wake up “oh, that’s right, I lost my legs, I got burned, I have cancer, my back hurts, I’m paralyzed…and it’s not a problem.”
The other day I hurt my hip. It’s actually been an ongoing pain that’s been building for awhile, sometimes a dull ache, sometimes more burning. This time it prevented me from dancing, which I usually do twice a week.
I’ve been studying Pain for awhile…and how the mind works with it.
Humans have studied pain for decades. It’s fascinating. We talk about people having different pain thresholds. Some women report that childbirth is terribly painful, some report that it was only uncomfortable.
We also have thoughts about those people who don’t feel much pain or who don’t get sick very often are doing something right, better…they are lucky, have it easy, are blessed, are wiser.
Not only is the pain bad, but there’s something wrong with me for experiencing it in the first place!
A study was done recently by scientists trying to understand more about chronic pain, at Northwestern University in Chicago. They concluded that the emotional state of the brain, how the mind reacted to an injury, had so much to do with the experience of the injury, that they could predict who would have chronic pain after the injury, based on brain scans.
In other words, different parts of the brain got very excited, jumpy, and active in response to a physical ailment…and this made the pain last longer or hurt more. Who knows why these brains got more excitable, they just do.
So there I was yesterday with my hip, feeling very sorry for myself. Thoughts like:
- this is the beginning of the end of my life of ease
- I’m getting older and I will have more and more body parts that hurt
- I don’t want to “have to” take care of this
- it should stop hurting
- I’m such a complainer—other people have it much worse
- I should be grateful it isn’t some major accident
- Quit your bellyaching!
- BUT I HATE IT!
My attitude towards this sensation in my hip is that it is a total annoyance and irritation AND I feel very sorry for myself. And then almost instantly I’m also thinking I should stop complaining about it and ignore it and STOP feeling sorry for myself.
Now I’ve got a boxing match going on inside the mind. What do you think happens when I’m mad at the pain and mad at myself for being mad? MADNESS ALL AROUND!
Endless loop. No inquiry. Mind spinning fast. Pain appearing and re-appearing.
So, I stop and slow it down and ask myself questions. I can be a scientist studying this interesting sensation in the hip joint.
It shouldn’t hurt. Is it true? I can’t stand it. Can I absolutely know that this is true? It means I will continue to feel pain into the future, now that I’m aging. How do I react when I think this thought? This is “hurting”. Who would I be without that thought, if I didn’t think this sensation was actually hurting?
“Everything turns out to be a gift—that’s the point. Everything that you saw as a handicap turns out to be the extreme opposite. But you can only know this by staying in your integrity, by going inside and finding out what your own truth is—not the world’s truth.”~ Byron Katie in A Thousand Names For Joy
How is it a gift that I have this hip pain, for the third day in a row? Or, any physical ailments in life: broken ankle, cancer tumor cut off my leg, horrible case of mumps, chicken pox, fevers, vomiting, rashes, colds, car accident, aging.
Katie speaks of herself doing inquiry on physical deterioration of the body. She watched the mind become horrified once when she passed a very old woman at a mall. Being right inside that old woman, she thought “oh my God, I’m trapped here! I’m supposed to be the young, bright one! There’s been a mistake, I’ll never get out, I’ll be like this forever!”
Without these thoughts of being stuck, trapped, horrified….there is such openness, entering a mysterious unknown. Katie describes how her own inquiry canceled the painful thoughts out.
“….The horror was equivalent to a deep gentleness, a caressing, a full, immovable acceptance. There was no discomfort. It began…..to love itself as the old woman, and to appreciate the slow pace, the withered flesh, the pain, the stench….there was no longer even the slightest desire to be anywhere else…”~Byron Katie
As I stop dictating to myself that I shouldn’t complain, stop telling myself that this hip is awful, that I’m STUCK because of it, that I’m trapped in a body that can get sick, injured or die….then I wonder what this is all for. I’m curious. I’m gentle and kind. I listen to the voice of this pain.
“Your thoughts make you suffer more than anything else, your interpretation of how dreadful it all is….”~Eckart Tolle
I stop inflicting more, additional pain upon myself the minute I turn my thoughts around.
I have no idea, I realize, that this hip pain means I am trapped, that it will last, or that I can’t ever dance again. I notice that I can be happy even if I feel physical pain or sickness or aging, I’ve known that always, I’ve experienced it.
I start to get excited about getting older. Feeling what happens, watching skin change, feeling messages to stop or go or do other entirely different things with movement.
What an amazing body, bringing me research into peace, awareness, awakening.
Love, Grace