The body can bring you neither peace or turmoil; neither joy nor pain. It is a means and not an end. It has no purpose of itself, but only what is given to it. The body will seem to be whatever is the means for reaching the goal you assign to it.
ACIM: Chapter 19: B:i:5-7
I awoke experiencing pain...not the same I was writing about in a previous entry. This is the cyst causing this pain experience, I think. This particular pain is there every morning when I wake up in varying degrees. This morning it is a little more intense than before probably because of the bout of diverticulitis I assume I went through the other day and that still lingers a bit. I catch myself labelling it as "Super annoying!" and I look up again, "Man, didn't I have enough pain the other day? Why do I have to deal with this?"
When I do that and say that to myself, I feel myself closing up to it in resistance. I am tensing up around it. I am emotionally tense. I begin the story telling about how long it has been there (since 2017) and that nothing will likely ever get done about it or the other things, and I am too tired to fight to get something done about anything going on in this body.etc etc etc. (...a thousand little violins playing all over the world lol. Yep, this is self pity at its best.)
So, when I realized where I was heading, I decided to take the focus off of "little me" and this body by doing a Tonglen practice. I decided to do a meditation that I recorded a few years ago and had offered on this blog. I went to that entry and lo and behold...there was a long winded tale there as well about the pain and health seeking experience of this human I call me. Crazy! I was so embarrassed. Everytime I see myself going off on a tangent about my physical woes I get so embarrassed. "This isn't spiritual", I tell myself. "You sound like a hypochondriac. No wonder why people can't take you seriously. Stay stoic and strong like you are tough and can handle all this pain. Don't let others see you sweat it out! Man, what is wrong with you?"
I told myself that when I got up...I would revise, edit, or delete all that rambling to create an appearance of me as a stoic, strong human being.
So, attention goes from pain...to the thought that I need to do something about it through external validation and care...to the story about the past ( health seeking experiences where I felt shamed for speaking out about the pain)....to fear about about a future of always having this pain and what will happen to this body...to awareness of a giving up....to self reprimand for even writing about or sharing out loud that I have pain and frustration...to shame and embarrassment. And from there to a desire to redeem myself by pretending to be more stoic than I am when it comes to my body's complaints. And all this in a matter of seconds!!! lol This is what my mind does whenever I experience pain. It feel like a knee-jerk reflex.
Eventually, I will pull myself back enough to fall into an acceptance and I will deal. Lately, I have been quick to recognize and catch myself slipping into this but some mornings it takes a little longer to get to this point.
I definitely do not want to limit my awareness to this body or its experiences but I am guessing there is something I am supposed to learn from them; there is something I am to explore about my reaction to pain. That is what it is...a reaction.
The question, then, is not so much, "What is wrong with my/this body?" or "What am I supposed to do about it?" when awareness of pain arises... as much as it is, "Why do I keep reacting this way to pain in the body?"
I know I can handle pain. I have a basic idea of what is going on physiologically when I have these pain experiences so I no longer need to be told by others or validated for my experience like I used to be. I am not afraid of whatever the future holds for me in this body once I get past the automatic reactivity. I know I am not this body and I am not afraid of it dying.
Why do I write about it then?
I am sure no one wants to hear about this human's experience of pain. BORING!! Though there is great learning in it for this "me", it is truly insignificant. This body is an amazing vessel and I am so lucky to have this one...and I want and need to look after it. I do not, however, have to be obsessed with it or worried about what might happen to it. That is where the shareable learning comes in.
When I have pain and am not extra careful to transmute it...this reaction carrries me away very quickly. I imagine many others also have reactivity based on their own unique experiences of past pain. I am, it appears, still very much trapped and entangled in a story. Are you? There is a big samskara stored in this "me" regarding past experiences. I do not wish to be constantly pulled into a reaction that takes me away from the Seat of clarity and presence I work so hard to stay in. I bet you don't want that for yourself either. Hmm!
Love and acceptance for the experience of the body is so, so different than a fear based clinging. I am at the point where I am truly learning to love and accept the body and its experience without a lot of attachment or aversion, but personal mind will still on occassion get tripped up by this samskara in me. If I am not mindful...it will carry this "me" into a fear story. I need to allow for the release of this samskara...as well as all other samskaras in here.
Every physical pain experience is doing us a favor. It is triggering past wounding...allowing it to come to the surface to be dealt with and released. The pain is one thing, reactivity and resistance is another. It is reactivity and resistance that turn pain into suffering. We may not have much control, as human beings, over some of the things going on in the body and the experience of pain it might lead to, but we get decide if that pain becomes suffering.
I have decided not to suffer. So I appreciate my pain and am grateful for how it can help me to "truly" cleanse and heal.
That sounds strange I know but I see it all so clearly.
All is well in my world.
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