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Pain is something most of us avoid exploring in a conscious way. We can speak about our hurt and even tell others how much we’re hurting. We can allow ourselves to feel the heaviness and the burden of that pain. But we don’t necessarily want to explore the wisdom it offers.
One of the questions I have found most helpful in dealing with emotional and even physical pain, is:
What do you have to teach me?
This question is truly an empowering one. It presupposes that there is wisdom available to us and that this wisdom has something valuable to share. It gives the pain a purpose beyond making us feel terrible or sad, or angry or abandoned or whatever.
When we ask this question and listen without agenda, then thoughts come, insights arise and awareness expands, in preparation for the answers. Those answers may come at that moment, or they may come unannounced as we’re going about our day.
Let me give an example that shows how both emotional and physical pain, when explored with presence and awareness, brings us to a place of peace.
You have a sore throat, a cough that never goes away. Or a stiff neck or swollen vocal cords. You also feel irritable, frustrated, annoyed or anxious. You might attribute those feelings to just being ill or under the weather.
Yet when you ask the question above about these symptoms, you now begin to gain insights. An image of a person may come into your mind and you may wonder why their image suddenly popped up. You might receive a phone call from someone who you haven’t heard from for a while and find it strange that they’re calling you now.
It might be that you watch a TV program that is dealing with an issue that speaks to you in some way, perhaps about the consequences of not speaking your truth.
Each of these occurrences have one thing in common. They’re telling you or reminding you that there is something you’re not being honest about. There’s something you’re not saying either to yourself or another that needs to be said.
In bottling up those words or emotions, you are literally stifling yourself. Yet in denying that this is what you’re doing, you’re giving this stifled energy no way to express itself. At the root of this energy is the wisdom that you need to honour yourself and your feelings.
Being fearful of the consequences of speaking your truth, you say nothing. And in that saying nothing your body then holds that energy. It holds that energy in the place that will be most affected. In this instance, that place is the throat.
The endless coughing, sore throat, swelling or stiffness is a sign and not just a symptom. It is a sign that you have something to say and that your denial of this is causing you greater and ongoing suffering.
This insight then leads to another question:
What are these consequences you fear and are they worth your ill health?
This is a wise question. How you answer it will tell you two things. If the answer is yes, it is worth my ill health, then you have a clear insight into how you are dishonouring yourself.
If the answer is no, it isn’t worth it, then you have a clear step to take. That step it to speak your truth. The person who popped into your mind, or called you unexpectedly, is usually the person that you have been avoiding speaking your truth to.
If you still don’t feel able to speak honestly, even with the insights gained, then this will lead to deeper questions. Questions such as:
Why am I giving my power away to this person?
Which will require you to be very honest with yourself in order to receive the answer.
That honesty means you will be dealing with the source of your pain directly. This will cause that stuck energy to move and shift in your body. Either getting worse because you’re avoiding a difficult conversation or getting better because you’re choosing to deal with it head-on.
So imagine if you applied the initial question to all of your greatest aches, hurts and pains. What insights might you gain? The question ‘What do you have to teach me?’ Doesn’t require you to diminish your pain, but it does require you to go beyond it and see what else might be going on.
In answering this question with honesty and without self-judgement, you empower rather than diminish yourself and your experience.
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