Enduring Pain With Patience

 It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure the pain with patience.

Juluis Ceasar 

I guess this energetic chaos is going to last until after March...in my version of life anyway lol.  

The Many Forms of Pain

 In my attempt to be there for  a suffering  loved one yesterday,  something I said or did ( not sure what), caused a severe behavorial reaction. And of course, though I automatically put on my Old Psych nurse persona when I feel it is called for and appeared  so calm and distant, I couldn't help but to soak it all in . It was like breathing in a cloud of dark, heavy smoke. It just polluted me. When I was alone, I literally fell to my knees. 

I have been feeling a little less than well physically the last week or so anyway.  This "energy" or emotion...whatever you want to call it that I have been picking up over the last few months is being absorbed, it seems, by the cells of my body.  

My old friend...pelvic pain...started with a vengenance two days ago ...after I noticed the other things that go with it. I am like, "Why? Do I not have enough?" 

It got so bad after the other's reaction I felt like I was in labor. It was excruciating for hours.  Others wanted to take me into ER but as always I resisted that big time.  Not that I should, nor do I recommend anyone with that amount of pain sucking it up...just my fear of past experience induced shaming is always bigger than my fear of pain or being ill...now that I really do not have much of a fear of dying anymore. I have even less desire to go there. Rationally, I know I probably should have went. Anyway...not recommending that avoidance to anyone . 

So this phyiscal pain became all emcompassing in my experience.  I couldn't see beyond it.  I was far from patient. All I could do was think about me in this body.  The pain took me away from thinking about the others who were suffering...any other.  I got lost in it.  I got lost in "me". I found myself "fighting" it, "resisting" it, "closing up" to it etc...my head was full of, "This isn't right!  This shouldn't be happening at this point of my life.  Something is really wrong." etc   

I had to remind myself of a very reassuring dream I had a week ago, before the symptoms even showed up,  that explained what would be happening in my body...and told me not to worry, it was not life threatening. That the removal of a body part would be coming but it was all going to be okay.  (Yes...I have those kinds of dreams). That  memory of the dream removed the "negative story" from the  experience, so there was just the pain and not the worry.

Anyway...the point is that it is so easy to get lost in the habitual way of responding to pain, be it physical or emotional. We can resist it, deny it, react to it with unwanted behaviours, we can close up to it and attempt to push it away or down...but what happens when we do that...the pain gets worse doesn't it?  It becomes all encompassing. This supressed and repressed pain can come out in an explosion of behaviour like the one I witnessed or it can become so intense physically like my pain experience did.

Resistance not the answer.  Patience is.

When I , yesterday, remembered my Tonglen practice of dealing with similar pain, when I decided I was  going to fall and relax into it instead of curl up in resistance to it...when I said out loud that I was going to allow it to be.  Then...I began to feel the pain and watch the pain and know that I was not the only one who ever expereinced this type of pain. I became the witness of the pain, rather than the pain. The pain, rather than being a monster in my life...became a teacher.  I asked "Why?" but not in the resistance tone I did earlier.  It was more of a "Why are you here in my life? What are you here to teach?" 

Then I relaized that pain was directing me back into this body and this idea of "me". It told me to look after this form.  I seen it too as a reminder to release tension and other emotion from my body...  to let go... so I can heal. I physically uncurled my body from the fetal position it was in. I uncurled my fists, relaxed my jaws which were clenched up, released my brow from the furrow it was in. I simply breathed in and out and did my best to follow the breath. I began to watch the nature of pain....it came in waves with a gentle onset thatt quickly rose to a crest or peak before falling back down and away. I breathed with it. ...instead of against it.  I was very, very patient with it. 

Before long my body relaxed into the pain and I fell asleep.  When I woke up I was relatively pain free.  Now I know the "problem" is not resolved.  Pain still creeps back in every now and again but I am using OTCs to keep it from getting too much.  I am seeking medical help for it. My focus is not so much on what is "wrong" or on how much it will hurt but on how much does it have to teach me. Pretty cool.

And then when I went to check what was read today...there was an entry read  on my stats page  from way back where I talked about how I dealt with such pain...how cool is that? 

Hmmm!