Saturday, July 27, 2013

Self Love Beyond Pain

If your SELF is filled with pain, you may reject that pain (not wanting to feel it) and along with it, you reject parts of yourself. Think about it. Your emotional pain is attached to--bound to--parts of YOU. Have you ever considered that the emotional pain you hide, deny and reject actually consists of some good stuff too? Like a dirty shirt that just needs a good washing...

Inner discomfort is attached to parts of you that you need. Parts of you that need you. When you run from pain, it's like refusing to clean your house. Pain is not as scary or bad as you imagine. Your feelings of hurt are often a signal that there is something you're ready to face, to heal from and to overcome.

You may try to medicate your pain with addictions. You may run to anything outside of yourself... drugs, alcohol, another person, love, sex, gambling, work, the internet.. Anything to distract you and to keep your mind off the nagging pain at the pit of your chest. The pain which is, in fact, your True Self crying out for attention, time and understanding.

Only YOU can answer the cry of your heart. It may feel like the pain will resolve once you fulfill your fantasy of wholeness that your pain has projected like an oasis in your heart, but that is a lie. The only way to stop the pain is by facing it, feeling it, processing it and letting it go. Once you do, you find pieces of you that the pain was holding onto. Pieces of you that are valuable. Pieces of you that you need. Pieces of you that deserve your own honor, attention, respect and love. Forgotten pieces of your very own self that you've left by the wayside because it was intertwined with pain.

Pain is anything other than complete Self Acceptance. Anything other than joy and jubilation at the thought of your existence, your day, your life. Pain is anything that interferes with fulness and wholeness. That pain must be cleared out, accepted, acknowledged and grieved. Stuffing your pain down only leads to depression and physical symptoms. It's only by being honest with ourselves, and brave enough to face the truth of our own discontent, that we can begin to reconcile ourselves inside.

Pain will not be denied.

J. Ryan
July 2013

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