Feeling Pain

Feeling pain is never easy! If it gets severe and chronic enough, it can be so debilitating that life no longer continues as normal.

I do not write these things from a theoretical viewpoint because I have lived them and I continue to live them. If you have read my book, you’ll know just how much I have lived through in my life.

The more we become aware of our bodies, the more we will see and understand. Often everyone wants to deal with feeling pain from the mind perspective only, but the body is the important component often overlooked.

Throughout Our Life, We Experience Stressful Situations

Throughout life we experience situations that are not easy. Some are traumatic and some are stressful. Some situations are overwhelming and there are some that we don’t even notice. They just build up into an accumulation year after year.

As we go through life, the body tries to get our attention. It tries to connect with the mind and say, “listen up – I need your attention.” There are so many distractions in life that we don’t heed its call. We often have not learned how to fully take care of ourselves or live in our body.

Feeling Pain And Avoidance

Feeling pain is taught as something we should avoid. From mommy trying to kiss our boo-boos to the doctor who gives us a medication to get rid of the pain, we learn to disconnect and numb.

From the parent that beats the daylights out of us or the bully that torments us daily, being aware of what is going on is not our friend.

Events that we see around us or constantly replayed on TV add to the torment we experience. The news of the day causes us to numb, disconnect, and disassociate.

Feeling pain is not taught to our children and I honestly believe that we teach the opposite. Maybe it is not through a conscious method, but we teach it by how aware and conscious we are. Most of us are not as in touch with the mind and the body as we think we are. We say we are and we lead ourselves to believe we are, but the evidence suggests the opposite.

Dials Of Balance And Homeostasis Begin To Wear Out

As we continue not to feel and experience life through both our body and our mind, the normal dials of balance and homeostasis begin to wear out. They no longer can be trusted and so everything in the body is off balance.

We are now feeling pain in the body or experiencing dis-ease and physical illness. Our minds get off balance and so what should be a normal view of seeing things around us becomes distorted. What we may have seen as normal at one time is no longer our reality. Yet, we are not able to even see it.

The homeostasis dial no longer puts the breaks of rational reality on what is happening and so the dis-ease, pain, and illness knobs all increase. It gets to a point where they are stuck and we struggle to dial them down.

The Stuck Energy Is The Knob That No Longer Works

Feeling pain is not something we desire because it is overwhelming and too much to handle. Our go-to practices don’t work because the stuck energy is the knob that no longer allows us to dial it down.

If we want to feel more, we have to go into the stuck knob and change the way we look at things and the way we do things. Yet, it all seems too overwhelming and frightening to do this.

Even though I can write about this and understand it, I still go through experiences like I recently did where it comes front and center to me. In this last experience, it felt like there was no hope and there was no way to find balance again.

David And Goliath

What seemed like a gigantic monster before me was not as hopeless as I thought. It reminds me of the story about David and Goliath where everyone was afraid of the giant. Yet, David took a small little pebble and brought him down. I think this story represents so much of what keeps us from healing in our life.

It does get too much at times and I understand that completely. There are moments that are hard to endure and we think all is lost. We don’t know there’s a way out even if it is staring us in the face. Even if we can see it, sometimes we are so weary and tired of trying to figure it out, that we are too exhausted.

The energy gets stuck in the body which only cranks up the pressure of the pain and the dis-ease we feel. Feeling pain is not our friend at that moment.

Takes The Right Person To Help Me Through Pain

Often, I have found it takes the right person to help me through it. Dr. Paul Canali is one such person for me. This last time I went to him, I was almost passing out in his office waiting room. The pain and torment inside my mind and body were so great, I was barely functioning.

When he started to work with me, it was not by him putting his hands on me. First, he listened and not just superficially. He listened to the story and what I was trying to say. He understood with empathy and he found ways to let me know he was there in my corner standing with me.

I wasn’t really feeling pain at the moment he started our session. I was using all my strength to block it out for it was too overwhelming.

He began with a weighted ball that I could feel and ground into with my body. The more I could feel it, the less I was in my head and that was the beginning point that day to bring me back. It helped me get back into my body which is where healing could take place.

PTSD Flashbacks And Feeling Pain

As the session went on, feeling pain meant that I had to go through the story of the PTSD flashbacks that were impacting me. None of this was easy and the challenge was so great that we took it very slowly.

By the time my session with Dr. Canali was finished that day, I was starting to truly sense and feel my body. It was not just about feeling pain but connecting to a better side of life. It all came back so quickly. I know I’ve developed the tools to connect my mind and body together, but I needed help in getting back to this point and to find them once again.

Just when I thought all was hopeless and lost, I saw once again the power of how he has taught me to go in and feel the pain. I’m not saying it is easy. I’m not saying it all comes automatically. There is often great struggle through this.

Hopelessness And Chaos In Life Brings Growth

He reminded me once again that when we experience chaos in our lives, it often leads us to greater lessons that we have not yet learned.

I know that feeling pain is essential and I know how difficult that can be. It is there for a reason and many times we can’t see that reason immediately. However, if we keep searching and seeking out people like Dr. Paul Canali and the work he does, we’ll find our way through it.

Overwhelm Keeps Us From Truly Feeling Pain

Our world is not designed these days to fully feel all that is going on in it. There is just so much overwhelm that self-care is critical. But if we are not dealing with the painful experiences of the past, no matter what we do in the mind, these things will generate imbalance and dis-ease in the body.

It is in the body part of the mind body connection that we need to find freedom and the courage to take it on. Throughout my life, I have only found a small number of people that truly understand this concept. May we all continue searching through the pain to discover the truths about the mind body connection.

Make sure you also read my blog post from October 9, 2019, on Hell And Torment.