the counterproductive to every excuse on the book to avoid ‘staying put and simply avoiding the pain’.
Look!
Poem: Estrella Guanche
Media: Digital Deliverance
Logo: logo creation © Sean Cavill 2021
Running away from…
Become Familiar With Fear: “No one ever tells us to stop running away from fear. We are very rarely told to move closer, to just be there, to become familiar with fear. I once asked the Zen master Kobun Chino Roshi how he related with fear, and he said, “I agree. I agree.” But the advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, smooth it over, take a pill, or distract ourselves, but by all means make it go away.” by Pema Chödrön
Excerpted from:
When Things Fall Apart Heart Advice for Difficult Times, Quote of the Week, April 28, 2021, by Pema Chödrön, page 4, Shambhala Publications.
Quote of the day:
“Shame is a psychological autoimmune disease, the mind trying to eat itself.” by Jeff Warren #DailyTrip, Calm App, May 1, 2021.
Quote of the day:
“Altruism is the only source of happiness.”
Interview by Dan Harris to the Dalai Lama on the Ten Percent Happier App: May 27, 2010.
https://www.tenpercent.com/podcast-episode/the-dalai-lama-251
What would it be like to feel your body through physical pain?
This morning, and for as far back as I can remember, I embraced and fully felt the experience of having a body. This seem like a ‘normal’ feeling to most people, but it is not to someone who feels pain every day of their lives.
Knowing, being aware of pain, chronic pain specifically, one knows at some level, that experiencing all the physical parts of oneself means coming face-to-face with suffering. And pain is to be avoided at all costs. When one becomes disabling ill, everything crumbles, and both the interior and exterior world is perceived as needing to be avoided. One wants to scream: ‘get out of this’ reality that is the illness or condition that one finds themselves in. There are few to no ‘coping’ mechanisms within reach that truly are helpful.
Furthermore, we live in a society constructed around the idea that for an ailment the only solution is to diagnose, solve, and medicate (or cut). When none of this works, as an internal solution, and by this I mean as a solution for the chronic daily pain that a person feels, then what? Much of the medical community copes themselves by numbing the ‘patient’ who does not know any path out of the agony.
Today, during one of my seemingly regular meditation sessions, something different occurred. I am unsure I can quite put my finger on it. Perhaps I simply let go; I allowed myself go into a space of feeling that which causes me ‘hurt’, or the daily pain that I so desperately avoid. And yet, unbeknownst to me, I made the choice of deeply feeling that which I have been running away from, the pain that I was so desperately escape.
Today I felt my body, in its full integral being. Yes, there was pain, but it was not the focus of my attention. Perhaps for the first time in a very long time, the focus was the sheer joy of the feeling itself, of the depths that it is to be alive in that very moment, of the unity of all my physical parts that made up the whole. And, also for the first time, it felt good; I smiled; I felt joyous; perhaps for a fleeting moment, but so worth it.
Thank you!
Thought:
“Nothing is ever lost, as every moment is the perfect place to begin again.“
Chronic Pain
This website is dedicated to the impact chronic pain has on the human body at all levels: physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. Its aim is the discussion and spread of systematic structures that have in some way helped those with chronic pain, myself included. Inclusive will be both western medical and eastern non-traditional practices.
Under the umbrella of my own long battle with an immunological-neurological disease called Pseudotumor-Cerebri (also known as Benign Intracranial Hypertension or/and Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension) diagnosed in 1992; and a complex clinical history with other conditions.
Please note that this is one of three sister websites:
- www.onemomentintime.life (this website), also known as www.1momentintime.life
- www.pseudotumor.life
- www.unsusurro.com (this website is in Spanish)
Thank you very much for your support and encouragement as we journey a difficult road through chronic pain!
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