Pain is inevitable in life. We all face it. We all struggle with it. No one likes it and no one enjoys being in pain. But it is inescapable and so it is important that we develop ways of dealing with it. I used to be an avoider. Big time. If you had asked me about pain in my twenties I would have said I had none – and yet I lived all the time with unbearable pain – I just played a game where if I didn’t acknowledge it, it wasn’t there – I pushed it to the back of my mind and hoped to goodness it would stay there and never impact my day-to-day life. Avoidance is one of the most common strategies for dealing with pain for those of us who are co-dependant. But it is not a strategy for dealing with pain at all! In fact it’s the exact opposite – it’s a strategy for NOT dealing with pain! In recovery I learned that we tend to avoid out of fear – fear that the pain will be overwhelming – that the pain will swamp us – that it will last forever – that we will be destroyed by it. These fears then overwhelm us themselves and we are frozen and unable to move forwards in any way because we are terrified of taking a step into such a frightening realm. Avoidance pretends to be our friend but it is a false friend. It whispers to us that we can hide the pain and it will be gone but it lies. In the end all we are doing is putting off the inevitable. Pain doesn’t go like that, it keeps popping up, keeps presenting itself to us in hopes that we will, this time, deal with it. It’s like a wound that we have treated simply by covering up – it won’t heal until it gets the treatment it needs. The first step in dealing with our pain in a more reasonable way is to stop listening to the self-talk that tells us we will be overwhelmed. Use affirmations like, ‘Just for today I will remember that even though there is deep pain in me, I do not have to allow it to consume me’. Re-program your mind with truth instead of fear and lies. In recovery I learned that I was able to sit with painful feelings without them overwhelming me. I had supports in place – a sponsor, meetings, tools like writing and newly learned skills like sitting with my feelings. These all helped me to learn new ways. Instead of hiding my feelings away so I wouldn’t have to feel pain, I allowed more to the surface and stopped playing the avoiding game. I learned the phrase, ‘This too shall pass’ and understood that the truth about pain is that it doesn’t last. It doesn’t consume us. In fact it is there for a purpose and its purpose is to draw our attention to things we need to work on. When we avoid it we prevent it doing the very thing it is meant to! Pain is meant to bring us to the place where we will work out what we need to deal with and then go and deal with it. It is meant to remind us that we have been injured and need healing. All my posts and sharing today will be about pain, and managing it. If you are in pain and need some support, some help, please know that you are not alone and that you can always contact me here via the inbox. Love and hugs ~ Sue
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 22:15:00 +0000
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