Thursday, January 7, 2010
Don't feed the pain
There are lots of hurts, big and small, which come into our lives. We treat them gently for a while, they heal, and may or may not leave scars. Pain is a warning that we need to deal with something. It's not meant to be a permanent condition. But emotional pain is a hungry animal, and if we feed it, it will stick around and consume us. We feed pain by focusing on it, repeating the story of our hurt, asking others to feed it sympathy. Pain feeds on anger and insult and retribution. If we let it, it will destroy us. So how do we move beyond pain? 1) Feel it fully and acknowledge it's there; 2) Tell it that even though it may be fully justified, it's not going to become the new focus of your life; 3) Starve it to death - by refocusing our thoughts when we want to dwell there. Stop telling the story over and over. Stop rehearsing the pain in your thoughts. When it appears, think of flowers or a perfect golf stroke. Give pain the attention it deserves and then no more. Move on to the joy that fills your life when you push pain over and give joy room to thrive.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Congratulations on your new blog! I love it!
ReplyDeleteRegarding pain, one of the techniques I have found useful over the years is to give pain only a certain amount of time every day. For example, when I was grieving the death of my mother, I set aside a time in the evenings that I could look at my photo album and listen to her music. At first, I just cried during that time. Later, it became a time of remembering fun things we did, and the wonderful things she taught me. It made the grief manageable because I could get through most days without being overwhelmed by it.