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Does Pain Serve a Purpose?
Pain: Friend or Foe?
You may experience body pain when something isn’t balanced in your life. I tell my patients that when we live our lives unconsciously, we’re not always aware of whether our decisions are for our highest and greatest good. In fact, we are often making choices that hurt us rather than heal us. When we make these kinds of choices, The Universe, or our Inner Guidance, has a way of nudging us to show us that we’re not following our soul’s path. The nudge starts with something small, like getting a new unsympathetic boss at work, but if we don’t take the hint, it can be bigger, like a car accident. If we still don’t listen to our Inner Guidance, sometimes we need what I call the “Spiritual 2x4” across the side of the head - an event so big, that we can’t miss it. That’s what happened to me.
I think I’ve always had a Type A personality, someone who is such an achiever that every waking moment is dedicated to some goal or prize. In school, if I got 98% on a math test, I’d focus on the 2% I failed to get right. When I failed my first A.R.C.T. piano exam at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Canada as a teenager, I stayed in bed and cried for almost three days straight. My motto was: failure is not an option. If you’re a perfectionist, take heed. As you’ll read in the pages to come, perfectionism is almost a guaranteed way to block your own healing. Crazy isn’t it? But it’s true.
When I made the commitment to build my eco-house with my husband despite the vehement objections of my family and the concern of close friends, I didn’t ever once consider that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t the right decision for me. I wasn’t at all concerned with what was for my highest and greatest good. All I was concerned about was the happiness of my husband. I thought that if I could finally make him happy, then I would be happy.
I layered more responsibility on myself to become a better person. It seemed like my goal in life was to be better, never being satisfied with who I was in the moment. There was always something better to look forward to, it seemed, and I wasn’t going to be satisfied until I got there. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “there”. There is only here. And truthfully, I wasn’t happy here.
So after years of pushing through the grueling schedule at medical school, the stressful jobs in underserved medical communities and finally embarking on house-building and not listening to my Inner Guidance, I finally received a “Spiritual 2x4” blow to the head. My descent into physical, mental and emotional misery was fast after that, like sinking into quick sand. My life was so busy and fast before I got sick that I wasn’t even remotely aware of the subtle signals from my psyche urging me to choose a different path. My Type A personality combined with my stubbornness created such an overwhelming situation that only a major catastrophe could slow me down enough to listen to my soul.
Pain Means Pay Attention
Pain can also be a sign that you are being called to pay attention to something important in your life, be it your lifestyle, beliefs or relationships, for example. So think for a moment about your own life. I don’t know exactly why pain has entered your life, but I do know the life patterns that are associated with it. What follows is a list of questions for you to start thinking about: what your pain is asking you to pay attention to or what purpose it may serve in your life. You might want to jot a few notes down in a journal when answering the following questions.
1. What events were happening in your life before you began experiencing pain?
2. Where and when in your life have you done things you really didn’t want to do, but thought you had to in order to be accepted? loved?
3. Do you ever say to yourself, “I’ll be happy when such-and-such happens” as if happiness depends on something happening in the future rather than being a state of mind in the present?
4. How often do you think to yourself, “Things would be great if only so-and-so would do such-and-such (to make my life easier)?”
5. How much attention have you paid to treating your body well, nurturing it with enough nutrition, exercise, sleep?
6. How much attention have you given to what your thoughts are focused on? Are they focused mainly on what’s wrong with your life or what’s right with your life?
7. Has life been centered on your daily activities and your to-do list with little or no attention focused on your life’s purpose or spiritual growth?
8. Do you ever wonder why you’re here on earth and what your purpose is supposed to be in the grand scheme of the Universe?
9. How often do you choose someone else’s well-being or needs over your own?
10. How balanced is your lifestyle? Do you balance rest with activity?
11. How much energy do you spend taking care of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health on a regular basis?
12. What might you be gaining by being disabled or in pain (Example: people feeling sorry for you, being nicer to you, feeling more supported by loved ones)?
When we take the time to evaluate how well we are taking care of ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually, we can then appreciate the role that pain has in our lives. Just because our bodies are self-healing organisms doesn’t mean that we can just put our lives on autopilot and assume that no matter how we treat ourselves, our bodies will bounce back.
Having pain symbolizes the opportunity to take full responsibility- maybe for the first time in your life- for your health and well-being.
Healing Others through Your Experience
Alice had a nagging pain between her shoulder blades. She had all sorts of other issues, so we didn’t start addressing this pain until some of the more urgent issues were dealt with first. This nagging pain suddenly flared up. One of her energy therapists said that there was an energy “hole” in the area. Whenever I’d acupuncture that part of the spine, the skin would turn beet red, indicating a source of inflammation.
Alice, being a remarkably sensitive and empathetic person, would easily be drained by family relationships. It dawned on me one day that she was so sensitive that she could literally “take on another’s pain”. I was inspired one day to ask Alice if she ever thought about her role as a healer. Many of us who are healers are what intuitive physician, Judith Orloff, M.D., calls intuitive empaths. Alice was an intuitive empath although she never thought about “healing” other people. During this conversation, I spontaneously asked Alice whether she would be willing to endure this type of pain if she knew that in the process she was healing someone else. Unequivocally, she said “Yes”.
What’s most interesting to note is that after Alice and I had that conversation, her pain seemed to quickly subside. I performed acupuncture on the area one last time and there was no redness. Later, she found out that a friend had been diagnosed with cancer of the spine in that exact area where she herself was feeling pain. She remembered our conversation and wondered whether or not her own pain was connected to her friend’s. Life is a mystery, so we’ll never know for sure, but it didn’t surprise me to find out that this friend experienced a spontaneous remission of her cancer, much to the surprise of her doctor.
So here are my questions for you: If someone you knew needed healing from a serious illness or disease, would you accept temporary pain if it meant you’d be helping him or her? If, in healing your own chronic pain, you somehow make it easier for other to heal theirs, would you sign up for this “spiritual” assignment? These are just questions for you to ponder.
Wounded Healer – Developing Compassion
I used to think that every healing professional worth his or her salt should be perfectly healthy. If not, why listen to what he/she has to teach? While it is true that we must practice what we preach, I now believe that it was presumptuous of me to “blame” healers for not being perfectly healthy themselves. Some of the best healing professionals I’ve known have endured significant illness. It has taken my own personal experience with illness and imperfection to realize that one of the benefits of experiencing pain firsthand is learning compassion.
Before I got sick myself, I thought of myself as being compassionate. I was popular and patients loved me. But underneath the mask of tolerance, I still judged my patients for not working hard enough to get well. I blamed them for eating poorly. I blamed them for smoking. I blamed them for staying fat. It wasn’t until I got sick myself that I finally developed true compassion for my patients. When I would wake up in the middle of the night with every bone in my body aching with pain, I understood how horrible it was to suffer pain. When I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even make a phone call, I understood what my patients with chronic fatigue syndrome were going through.
These days, instead of perceiving pain as the enemy, I appreciate it as a teacher. It is human nature to live life on autopilot, without consciousness, getting our “to-do” lists done every day, but pain has a way of waking us up to the present. Pain has taught me compassion. I believe that although my stressful lifestyle contributed to the development of my illness, I shouldn’t blame myself for it. Instead, I am grateful for the experience so that I can learn compassion and help countless others who are in pain as well.
Many of my patients are healers, but they don’t know they are. They have the “wounded healer” archetype. What this means is that part of their life purpose is to experience “wounds” as part of their spiritual journey so that they may move beyond them and teach others how to live empowered lives. It doesn’t mean that everyone has to be a professional healer if he or she has the wounded healer archetype. People who heal themselves from a wounded to an empowered place radiate the kind of compassionate energy that empowers others whether they recognize it or not.
Don’t Blame Yourself
Many people erroneously believe that they are in pain because of something they did wrong. Although it might be true that you could have taken care of your body better in the past, be compassionate with yourself. I’ve had a hard time with self-compassion because I can be extremely self-critical. The words, “could’ve”, “should’ve”, “would’ve” come up quite a bit in my thoughts, but now I know these are my defenses. Do you ever hear yourself saying these words? From this point forward, eliminate these words and focus on the present. When you catch yourself in a self-critical mode, see if you can gently recognize an old pattern and then stop your negative train of thought right away.
Taking responsibility, without blaming others or past situations is very healthy and is different from feeling guilty about being at fault. Each moment is an opportunity for you to take responsibility, i.e. to choose a healthy thought or to let go of an unsupportive unhealthy thought. Every time you choose self-compassion over self-criticism, you are feeding your spirit!
Another belief that I held that I have since let go of is the belief that if I did everything “right”, I would not be in pain. It bothered me when spiritual gurus I admired manifested illness because I believed that they should be healthy if they were doing things “right”. Thanks to my spiritual teacher, Pat Jones, of Healing Adventures, I now realize that this just simply isn’t true. Many spiritual and holistic health gurus enjoy perfect health. But when they don’t, it isn’t necessarily because they didn’t eat right or thought the wrong thoughts. Pat explained to me that some souls come into the world with a contract to bear the burdens of others so that the world can be healed by their actions. Jesus was such a person. He wasn’t ill, but he willingly accepted death on the cross in order to teach us compassion and the immortality of spirit. Spiritual teacher Ram Dass was struck with a severe hemorrhagic stroke at the age of 65 in the middle of writing his book, Still Here: Embracing Changing, Aging and Dying. His struggle with faith and his spiritual healing have now become legendary and an inspiration to all who suffer.
Living on Autopilot versus Living Consciously
If nothing else, the experience of chronic pain, or any other illness for that matter, is an invitation from spirit to live consciously rather than on autopilot. Living on autopilot means going through our day without a thought or care as to what we truly feel or believe. It means taking action without conscious choice and letting our childhood programming direct our lives, whether or not that programming is for our highest or greatest good. Often, it is not and we need to “grow up” to make our own conscious choices in order to be truly fulfilled and healed.
Chapter Summary
Pain is a useful sign that something is amiss or out-of-balance in your life
Pain may be signaling that you need to wake up and pay attention to something in your life that may not be serving you
Pain symbolizes an opportunity for us to take full responsibility for our health and our happiness
We can choose to see pain as an opportunity, rather than as an enemy
Some people are “wounded healers” whose purpose in life is to empower others to heal from a place of compassion
Pain may be an invitation to start living from our conscious selves rather than living on autopilot