Pain.
If you had to chose, which would you pick.....
Mental Pain ?
Physical Pain ?
Emotional Pain ?
None, right? I mean, come on. That's a stupid question to ask, because none of us would
pick pain as our companion. But so many of us walk with her.
Some of us have the pleasure of knowing all of her parts, having been dealt the daily dose of mental, physical and emotional pain.
Others only know her in pieces. It the ones who know her in whole that I want to talk to today. Myself included.
" Never allow the past to hold you back from enjoying a full life. What have you got to lose, except a heavy burden? Forgiveness is usually the key to moving forward, which is why it’s on the path to gaining insight. When you forgive yourself, and those who have hurt you, you are able to release negative patterns that visit you over and over again. More important, you will finally sever the control that a memory of another person has over you. Stay in the present, affirm the good that has been a result of a bad situation, and love your authentic self even more than you did yesterday. You can do it!"
Just yesterday I got word from my doctor that surgery on my ankle is in my very near future.
Wonderful. Fan - freakin' tastic.
This on the heels of 7 months of trying to work through an injury that just hasn't healed. So not only have I battled the physical pain of the injury, it's been a constant struggle to maintain the emotional and mental pain that follows the isolation of an injry. (That, and a move across the country to a place where this southerner is a true 'foreigner.' and where I have been completely forced to re-invent myeslf.)
But what's been interesting along this journey through physical pain, is the realization that emotional hurts have surfaced based on how vulnerable I'm feeling at the time. The more physical pain I'm in, the harder those emotional hurts hurt.
Seeing a picture of someone I lost can send me into a real downward spiral of self doubt. Why? Why do I let a broken relationship have any say on who I am today? Why do I still give that relationship a power over me?
Logically, I can look at that loss and say it was in hindsight, the best thing that's happened to me. The relationship was unhealthy and although I didn't have a say in it's being over, the fact is ... it's over. Ok, move on right?
Wrong. The more vulnerable and isolated I feel based on my pain, the less strength I have to fight off that self doubt that wonders why I wasn't good enough to stick around for. You know?
I literally find myself swimming upstream against my own demons to fight through the pain of being dumped.
So ~ where do you go? How do you fight that pain? and which pain wins? Which of her ugly black pits do you fall in, when you are faced with even just the memory of a 'pain?'
Some days it's ok to just sit with a pain. Maybe you need to nurse it a little bit, feel it a little bit deeper or give it a voice and speak your mind. But some days, I think at least I know I do... I need to take a long hard look at what I'm letting cause' me pain.
I'm a fighter. I haven't always been - but I've learned to be. I've discovered courage I didn't know I had - all on the heals of a pain I didn't want.
I bet you're a fighter too. Your fight may not give you the benefit of putting on the gloves and going a round or two with your opponent. Mine didn't. I have had to fight my battle in private and entirely on my own. If this is you, let me encourage you in the knowledge that there's something to be said for private battles that you fight and ultimately win on your own.
If you're lucky enough to have a circle of friends to fight with you, then that makes me smile for you. And I say that without a drop of sarcasm, because you are the lucky one.
But there are some of us, who don't have that... so the battle has been fought on our own. The lines weren't clearly drawn, they were forced. And we struggled to gain our footing, as we climbed the bank of depression and crested the hill of despair.
And then somewhere in there, we noticed a change.
The pain that once threatened to drown us with it's weight, has slowly, and painfully, become less. Less than it once was. Less of a threat to our making it through the day. Less important. and if we're lucky, less than worth our time to feel anymore.
I'm not there yet ~ with this pain. But I can say it's less than. And I can say, that it has been the sole catalyst in propelling me out of myself and into the new me. So although it began as a pain that I was sure would drown me, today I'm grateful and in a way thankful for that pain. Without it, I would not be who I am today.
As for the ankle pain, well - that's a work in progress. I have the MRI next week to find out the extent of the damage and therefore assess how to proceed. Then begins a new round of pain for me, as I spend the next couple of months recovering.
Whatever your pain, at whatever level you may be.... remember ~ All pain is a work in progress. It moves. It changes. It progresses and it sets us back. But pain management comes in many forms, the strongest of these being the courage to face it head on. Fight it. and WIN.
"Know that courage doesn't always roar. Sometime courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow."
