Withdrawing from the pain

I have been seeing a chiropractor lately to help me recover my health from the pain that I had developed from my pregnancy last year. I had been going to physical therapy but felt that even though it was giving me some relief it was more like a band aid than actual healing.

Since I have been seeing the chiropractor I have seen a vast improvement in the return or my health. Healing is an internal process that sometimes may need some outside assistance depending on the balance or lack of balance within the body. As I shared my excitement and gratitude with my chiropractor's assistants, they asked me to write a testimonial. Writing the testimonial has brought some realizations that I want to share with you. I am including an excerpt of the insights and aha's I have come upon.

But the greatest healing I received was something I didn’t even know that I needed. As I have been healing and experiencing improvement in the returned health and strength of my body I have also seen an improved mental and emotional balance and wellbeing as well.

It wasn’t until I started feeling physically better that I realized how much of a mental and emotional toll the pain was costing me. I am by nature a light hearted, caring, and outgoing person. I hadn’t realized that with this experience of prolonged intense pain that I had turned inward so much. I was increasingly moody, irritable, impatient, annoyed, angry, short tempered, exhausted, unsympathetic, and withdrawn. This is just a little of the negativity I was experiencing. It wasn’t that I wanted to feel or be negative but I believe it’s more of a self-protection mechanism like that of a turtle. When you are experiencing intense pain for prolonged periods of time you may unconsciously feel the only way to survive is to withdraw from feeling and become numb.

However, you are not only withdrawing from feeling pain but everything else as well. Withdrawing from feeling and being numb is in essence a form of depression. This translated to me smiling and laughing less, being less engaged with others, becoming complacent and distracted, being defensive and aggressive with others, not being fully present in my life, and building up resentments. As excited as I am to feel better physically, I am ecstatic to feel like myself again.

Now I want to smile and laugh. I want to play and have fun. I want to be around other people and enjoy it. Life is exciting and full of possibilities once more. I feel I have regained my balance and the symphony of who I am is back in full swing. I have reconnected with the things I love and feel passionate about sharing them. I am able to enjoy life again and am eager to live my life rather than be a by stander in it and watch as it passes by. For all of this I am extremely grateful.

As grateful for help with my healing as I am, I know that I wouldn't have gotten as much out of it if I hadn't made some key choices. I first had to decide that I wanted to be here and feel even if it meant being in pain and hurting. I had to commit to myself and my healing. That meant not settling and finding the solutions I needed and wanted. It meant taking the opportunities when they presented themselves and acting on the things I felt impressed to do in spite of what others said. It meant asking for and accepting the help I wanted. And it meant not giving excuses and accepting accountability for myself and my choices.

I know that I have talked about pain before but I didn't quite understand just how much physical pain can completely change a person's outlook on life if we let it. In my case I withdrew from feeling, while I have seen others embrace the experience and allow it to change their outlook into a more compassionate and loving perspective of life and their relationship in it. Even though my initial reaction was not in this direction, I have found that my perspective has now turned in this way as well.

I now work to look at everyone through this new perspective that maybe I don't know the whole story and so I give more freely and take less offense. I have decided to take accountability for the way I feel and what I am seeing in my daily interactions. I have chosen to see that maybe compassion and love may be a better action than that of reacting out of fear, anger, and misunderstanding. This is just one of the aha's I have learned from my experience and is just the tip of the iceberg.

Pain is hard and it can be difficult to bear, especially at its worst. However, even though it hurts and is hard it can be a teacher and a means of bringing great change if we choose. Ultimately that is the determining factor in anything in our lives, choice. We can choose to see it as too hard to bear, be fearful and afraid, withdraw and become disconnected, become critical and complaining, or all of the above. I am not saying that choosing to react in these ways is a bad thing. This is exactly what I did.

What I am saying is if you have the chance to become aware that there is another choice, a better one, one that can help you achieve what you want, make it. Don't let the pain, the fear, the obstacle, the stumbling block, etc. be the determining factor. Don't let them get in the way or become an excuse not to have what you really want in life. Be fearless and allow those things to be the teachers they really are so you can see with a fresher perspective than before.