Pushing Past the Pain

What we think, what we feel belongs to us. Our pain is not the result of how someone has treated us, it is our reaction to their action. We own our thoughts. We own our feelings. We just don't realize it. It takes a journey through a jacked up jungle of what appears to be ill-timed jinxes for us to come to a reckoning place with our pain.  If we let it, the pain piles on us like a plague. It fills all the crevices of our being.  It invades our mind, our muscles and our memory.  We forget we ever existed without pain. It consumes us...if we let it.

I let it and for a time, it consumed me. It nearly broke me. But the most important truth of it all that I had to come to cold, hard grips with was that I let it consume me. I allowed myself to be held prisoner by the pain.  I held the key the whole time. The whole time! Silly simple solution right in front of me the whole time. The love and joy was there all along but I allowed it to be covered up by all the pain. Instead of securing the foundation, I piled all kinds of tonnage on top of it expecting it not to crack and when it did, I was devastated. How could this have happened to me? My mind was so full of the pain I couldn't see beneath it until I almost lost it all. I almost lost ME to the pain. An awakening occurred within me. A light sparked inside me. Little by little I cleared the rubble with forgiveness and with prayer.

Forgiveness is a gift of freedom you give yourself. It allows you to rise up from the rubble, brush it off and walk away from it. Forgiveness was the tool I needed. Forgiveness was my shovel! It really was. It gave me the leverage I needed to rise up, it allowed me to start digging through all the rubble and all that hard work restored my strength. I began to pray again. Prayer was a behavior I learned early in life. It was within my foundation. It wasn't until later in life that I truly understood the power of prayer. Prayer gives you a voice. Prayer is a calling out from beneath the pain. Prayer allows you to identify the problem.  It beckons a guiding force. Prayer allowed me to be attuned to myself again and the forces around me. I only had to let them in which meant opening the pain prison door. 

Opening that door took courage. It took a brave heart to convince my tired body to stand again.  It took a courage to persuade my mind to simply be open to the idea of coming out again. Finally my feet made the first move toward the door driven by my soul desire to be free.

After a time I resurfaced with all the love and joy that laid beneath all the many layers of pain. I began to own my feelings, created boundaries to protect them and healthy habits to cultivate them. Recently I joined a group of friends that created an exercise accountability forum via Facebook. I had been attempting on my own to incorporate an exercise regimen into my life, but was not consistent. It wasn't until I joined this group that required my feedback, that I realized the reason for my resistance toward exercising. It was truly mind blowing to realize the truth behind my actions.

Simpy stated, exercise causes physical pain. In the past, I had become easily defeated by pain.  I had allowed myself to fall back into those same reactive behaviors. It took some intense self evaluation without judgement to identify the problem.  I had to retrain my brain to react differently to pain. I still struggle with this process. I have developed a strategy.  Using music to guide my thoughts through exercise allows me to evoke fun memories and feelings.  I dig on 80s dance tunes! Lots of MC Hammer.  My son still laughs at me for this, but those tunes evoke a time of fun in my mind. A time of dancing and a time of joy.  This really works for me.  Feeling good while exercising allows me to look forward to this routine instead of dreading it.

I found the key. It was there the whole time.  I want to help you find yours.  Keep reading. I will try to do better about publishing more often.  Share with me your own insight, your struggles, etc. Together we can sift through the rubble and reveal the beautiful gem that is YOU!

YOU hold the key!