Traveling into the pain

“What you resist it persists”

A day before traveling to Denmark back in April. I seriously injured my back while trying the sit-start on the slackline.

Through this experience, I got to see how physical and emotional pain was intertwined. The time when my back was hurt, not only the physical pain was hurting me but the stories attached to my pain were hurting even more and perhaps more so than the real pain. I was angry with myself, blaming myself for going for a movement jam just the day before my flight. At first, I thought I could not travel in these circumstances as I could hardly sit, get up and walk. After trying so hard to get my visa to travel it felt like all the work went to it was for nothing and these thoughts followed with my intense emotional pain of abandonment. Even Though a friend of mine came to the emergency room and stayed with me while I got the painkiller shot, coming back home I had to walk a long way since my friend left two stops before me. When I exited the tram everything suddenly seemed impossible and I felt all alone. Nonetheless, I returned home and tried to sleep before my flight without much success.

As I was feeling the immense pain while sitting on a plane I caught myself trying to run away from the pain literally. I would feel electrocuted by the pain then noticing myself trying to remove myself from it by moving my body to left and right. Then suddenly I had the idea. What if I imagined how the pain looked like? Its shape, color, texture, and travel into it. I closed my eyes and imagined being inside of that pain. I could feel clearly how it felt. The pain started to spread, slowed down, and pounded. It felt like it dissolved for a while and came back again.

I learned this from somatic experiencing, Peter Levine’s approach to trauma healing.

I found it interesting. I think grief would feel very much the same for me. Sometimes I would think I was all okay and I moved through it, it is done now. Yay! I have achieved. I moved on. My grief is over. But it’s not quite like that, just like waves it would strike me in most unimaginable places. I would cry on buses, at train stations, and on my sunset walks.

These past days felt again like traveling into the pain but this time it felt like I couldn’t contain it. I didn’t know what to do with it. I closed my eyes and tried to locate the pain. My task was to separate stories from the pain again. I disconnected from social media and from my phone to feel it better this time. I went for walks without taking my phone with me. I did juggling and connected what was around me, cats in the park, birds, and the fun of losing the balls while juggling.

How did I get to be okay with my tears?

We learn how to behave towards ourselves based on how we have been received in the past by others while showing our tears, joy, and many more feelings.

And if we have been received as not so welcome we adapt and push down those feelings that got us rejected in the past or double down showing our pain, or whatever the feeling which were rejected, two sides of the same coin. Attachment theory talks a lot about this.

Now, as I had to travel into the pain again without a choice, I needed to give myself something that I never received. Compassion and acceptance of my pain.

It was hard as I never learned how to be present to my pain but with some inner child work, I got better at it. Time and time again I got to understand that my pain could be eased effortlessly when I could show my tears, my frustrations, and my pain to someone. I was surprised that sometimes I would meet with a trusted friend and think that I needed to vent about all the things that were not going well in my life and share my heavy feelings like that. Once as I was doing that I didn’t feel like perpetuating them anymore. Although my problems were still there I didn’t feel like complaining more about them. This is very interesting because I thought there was more to complain about or tell so much about my pain but I suddenly felt settled.

I believe this was all because of my friend's consistent space-holding.

Not to fix me, not to deny my feelings but just simply witness. I remember once I found myself crying and next burst into laughter just like a little kid.

I came to learn when I didn’t resist my feelings they could run their natural course. I believe when we feel understood and loved in our tears we can let go of the pain and sink into just being and we will find pleasure in this, in just existing.

I came to see that the point is not to protect my loved ones from the pain but to be a safe anchor for them so that they can travel into the pain as they wish.