Wednesday, February 11, 2015
When Being Present is Painful
I brought up meditation yesterday, so being a loyal soul, I sat down to do my 15 minutes just now. It's already afternoon and I'd been thinking this morning about meditating and purposefully not doing it because I was having my lupus fatigue and pain. It seems counter intuitive but meditating can be tiring for me on days I really don't feel good. So I was fine with only doing what my body felt comfortable with, until..oh...15 minutes ago :).
I decided to make space for myself on the quiet living room floor. As I bent my painful joints down toward the ground I remembered why I didn't want to. Not only can it bring pain (although in honesty the calm and stretching helped bring light relief today) but facing myself mentally without distraction brings forward emotional pain.
We humans are adaptive in trying to avoid mental and physical pain at all costs, and from what I gathered in the book Carry On, Warrior we find distractions from mental pain usually at the cost of addiction. So I try to notice when I am turning to things as a distraction from my own pain.
So how many times can I say pain in one post? I think we all agree that's what I'm getting at. All I'm really here to say is that I felt it today and I faced it. And no, this isn't a resolution now where I say it ended because I faced it. This is more like a pat on the back or fist bump in the air for myself for facing the feelings rather than hiding. That is all.
I felt the pain (both physical and otherwise). I felt the hurts. And now I am here, continuing my day.
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The experiences of birthing my last two children were profoundly different because I faced and accepted the pain of labor. I didn't try and distract myself or push against then pain, I just let it be. I don't think it actually mitigated any of the pain, but I felt less defeated and more peaceful. I have often felt transported to another dimension during labor which has always been frightening for me. Accepting and facing the pain also meant leaning into that other dimension and letting go of whatever trappings or illusions I have built up about myself.
ReplyDeleteMaybe that is also a part of meditation where you strip away those illusions and lean into what is real and present.
I really identify with that swedemom. That fear of that other dimension in labor. I think that fear was bigger than the actual pain. OKay, maybe that's a stretch. I've mercifully forgotten the pain if I'm saying that. But yeah. I agree.
DeleteI really identify with that swedemom. That fear of that other dimension in labor. I think that fear was bigger than the actual pain. OKay, maybe that's a stretch. I've mercifully forgotten the pain if I'm saying that. But yeah. I agree.
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