Love Your Pain

Recently I had a flare up of severe back pain. It sucked! I was up for an entire 24 hours. During the night, I was in so much pain that I couldn’t sit still. Normally, if something like this happens, I can just lie there and not move and the pain subsides. I dealt with these flare ups for years but this time was different. I couldn’t sit still. When I tried, it felt like I was being stabbed by sharp little knives up and down my spine. There wasn’t a position that I could get into to calm the stabbing in my back.

When things like this happen I do my best to practice what I preach. I sit with the pain, listen to it as best can, and ask it what it needs either physically, mentally, and/or spiritually to feel better. What it told me surprised me a lot.

I am always trying to get rid of my pain. I have healed myself of all kinds of conditions that the doctors told me couldn’t be healed. I prided myself in doing this and I looked at my pain as something to love but something to also overcome. When I asked my pain what it needed from me to heal on a spiritual level it told me to stop pushing it away. As I sat there in a stunned silence squirming in my bed trying to get comfortable I thought to myself, “Well, I guess I could do that.” Unfortunately, in that moment of pause, all my catastrophizing fears of living in pain for the rest of my life and this scorching discomfort started to come to the surface. I started to panic!

After a few minutes of sheer panic, something inside me took a deep breath and I thought, “Why not give it a try?” I always did what my pain asked of me before and it always lead to healing so why would this time be anything different? So I did. I took a deep breath again, this time purposefully and told my pain that I would allow it to be. I wouldn’t love it only as a way of eliminating it. In doing that, I was finally able to find a position that I could be still in. I stacked all my pillows on top of each other and laid on them face down with my legs and arms dangling to the sides. I actually slept a little in this strange position. It wasn’t really sleep, more like a deep meditation. But I finally had the opportunity to rest.

As I continued to send my back love and acceptance I asked it those other all important questions. “What do you (the pain) need me to do on a spiritual and physical level in order to heal?” I was finally thinking differently about the pain and that seemed to help, so I continued the questions.

On the physical level it told me to be more present in my skin; to stretch more and move slowly with conscious care. On the spiritual level I was guided to read a wonderful book on using past life therapy to find healing. I found a wonderful healer in England who did some awesome past life work on me (Eliza Whitehorse) and then I continued the energetic past life clearing with my good friend Kimberly Klaas (you can find both Eliza and Kim on Facebook). In two days I was already back on my morning hiking routine, albeit very slowly. The pain was there but it felt like it was working with me instead of against me. It was helping me become stronger by lovingly working through this current struggle. My fear of being in pain the rest of my life dropped away and I found myself feeling more present in my daily activities. The gift of being more deeply present was there almost immediately and although my body was certainly suffering I found myself in a state of grace and ease.

So, love your back pain. Love it not to make it go away but to embrace it and learn from it with the knowing that it will make you stronger and more resilient. In fact, love all your pain and see if you can feel the healing it has to share with you. I know that when I feel loved, I can do things I never thought possible. I wonder what amazing things the parts of you that may be in pain could achieve if they felt loved too?