On Pain and Healing

Source: HealthyYouCellutions

I recall, almost 10 years ago, I watched an interview by Oprah hosting a girl child with a rare chronic illness. She couldn’t feel pain, thus she used to hurt herself. She put her fingers in her eyes, removed her nails, and…. I don’t feel comfortable trying to recall this. The moral of the story is that the child did not know she was hurting herself, simply because she couldn’t feel pain.

Years later, I realized how we are all similar to the child. She was exploring her body, and we go through Life exploring who we are and what Life is about. Along the way, sometimes we make decisions that hurt us. “Ouch! Painful!” Yet, unlike her, we are blessed to feel pain.

Pain Helps
Pain is a signal that one should not continue what they are doing. If the child could feel pain, she wouldn’t have continued to hurt herself. So I think of the pain of the sad Life experiences people go through. Pain is a messenger of change.

Besides, pain is the best kindness master I’ve ever known. When I reflect on my painful experiences, I realize how they made me much softer and more perceptive. Here, I recall a saying for Shams Tabrizi, “Love cannot be perfected without pain” (The Forty Rules of Love, Elif Shafak). Pain makes us gentler and wiser lovers. Pain makes us happier with the small joys of Life.

The Pain Drama

However, sometimes we dramatize pain and like to stick to it for a while. This is unhealthy. 
I am not calling for suppressing your feelings or ignoring your hurt. I am calling for feeling pain, and then letting it pass. Let’s not indulge deep in pain that it becomes a door for more hurt and suffering. Exaggerating feelings is poisonous.

Healing

One should take any small step towards healing, even if the road is unclear. They key is to do the one action, think the small good idea, feel the tiny good feeling that makes you feel stronger and happier. There always are choices for moving forward.

The Beauty of Pain: KINTSUKUROI

Pronounced kin-tsu-koo-roy, is a Japanese form of art in which broken objects are repaired using gold or silver lacquer. The object is believed to be more beautiful because it broke and it has the new gold lines. This is a great resemblance of pain and healing and the beauty potential of our souls. 

After all, Life is a series of pain and healing. It’s a continuum of joy and sorrow. Let's make peace with this fact, and learn to detach ourselves from all.

Google: Kintsukuroi