Leaning Into Your Pain

I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been through a deeply painful life event by the time they hit their thirties.

Life gets hard. It does — there’s no getting around it. We’d all love to have a happily-ever-after, but there’s no such thing because our life isn’t ‘done’ when we meet our life partner or when we leave home or when we have kids or when we achieve our greatest career goals.

Life is ongoing. It’s life. And it will continue to have ups and downs, right until the end.

Traumatic events are different for everyone, and everyone handles their pain in their own way. I am not going to tell you that ‘everything happens for a reason’, because some things are unjustifiably hard and to imply that they were supposed to happen is to diminish the pain felt.

Your pain should not be brushed off or diminished. It exists because you exist; because you are human, and because you are made of love. Respect the hurt that you feel and talk to others who respect it too.

What I have learnt is that leaning into your pain, instead of running away from it, helps. Not immediately. In the short term, it can hurt even more; there’s no hiding from what’s going on if you stand and look it straight in the eye. But embracing your pain allows you to build strength and resilience, and to find a way through, instead of finding a way around.

How Do You Lean Into Your Pain?

Don’t push yourself. If you need to take time, then do. If you need some hours or days or weeks in which you distract yourself and create some space to feel relief, then allow yourself that.

There’s no rush.

But when you feel ready, find stillness.

Sit with your pain. You don’t need to solve it — you don’t need to figure anything out. There might be no way of solving it, anyway. All you can do is be with this pain until a day comes along when it doesn't feel so sharp. When the ache is a little less heavy.

Allow it to come and go. Know that some days will feel easier than others. And know that feeling worse today than you did yesterday does not mean that you’re going backwards.

Pain is not linear. There’s no step-by-step way to get through it and get over it. Some things will be with you for the rest of your life — but if that’s the case, those things will give you a greater ability to empathise with others. To offer help and understanding.

Respect the ebb and flow of your emotions. Give yourself permission to feel.

And in those moments when you’re able to, be still. Let your body feel whatever it feels. Let the tears come — and don’t worry if there aren’t any tears. There is no right or wrong way to feel.

This isn’t easy. But you are amazing. You are strong — the reason you’re here, reading this, working your way through, is because you are strong. And with every moment you move through, you are using your strength.

One day you will put your arms around another person and hold them while they feel their pain. And you’ll understand.

Love and Gratitude Always

Julie xxx

#life #actingpure #recovery #pain