The weight of pain
…and how I listen to what it’s telling me
“in order to heal
april green
any kind of pain
you have to do something
very few ever do:
talk about it,
(even if it’s just to the air)
talk about it.
whisper it.
let it drift out of your being“
A song I’m currently enjoying:
I started writing this post straight after releasing my first blog post last week, because in the terrifying act of hitting “publish,” then seeing another message pop up on the screen, (which almost felt like a warning): “are you ready to publish?” I was suddenly reminded about the above poem.
“Yes” I am ready to publish. Because, writing as therapy isn’t just therapy for me. Because, somebody with depression might be trying to find the tiniest glimmer of light. Because somebody in the grip of addiction might be looking for a sign. Because, somewhere and everywhere, Grace is holding out her hand for those who need it most.
During the last year, I found myself completely misaligned with one of the most important approaches to healing I had discovered for myself: that if I didn’t feel it all; if I didn’t talk about it (to another person, to a journal, to the air) I would end up carrying it inside; and it would sit like an anchor at the bottom of my heart, in my hands, at the back of my eyes and that place at the base of my throat. If I didn’t talk about my emotional pain; if I disowned it, avoided it, I would feel it more intensely, and I would feel it for longer.
I have always been afraid to grieve, and cry, and generally feel it all in case I sink lower than I have ever gone before. In case I unearth something I had buried and forgotten about; in case I return heavier. And a few months ago, I learned the hard way once again – it hurts more to resist pain than it does to grieve and cry, and feel it all.
As I gently enter this new, and lighter season, I am reflecting on all the different ways we avoid our pain.
We don’t want to see it again. We don’t want to acknowledge it, feel it, taste it, or touch it again. We become terrified of the possibility that meeting our pain could inflict even more pain, so we turn away from it, deny it exists, push it further inside. We start living in the world of elsewhere; a recurring dream we can return from whenever we get too close to that thing inside us we don’t fully understand. We become so accustomed to it’s weight, it’s texture, its shape that we don’t always notice when it starts spilling from our seams and into everything we touch, everything we attract.
When we avoid our pain, we invariably miss the beauty of life: the very thing that is patiently waiting to nourish us back to life.
As a child, I learned how to live in a dissociative way, fleeting between altered states of consciousness as a means of escaping reality. (I am certain that there are places I have visited within that I don’t think I have ever properly returned from.) As an adult in recovery, doing the daily practice of self awareness: the progressive letting go of all my perceived limitations, the ongoing work of learning and unlearning, breaking and softening, holding on and letting go, I have learned to recognise when I’m living in a dissociative state. I have learned that when I avoid facing my pain, I avoid facing myself. When I hide my pain, I hide parts of myself. And when I hide parts of myself, I don’t feel like I have any value to offer, I don’t feel good enough, I start taking up a little less space, I speak a little less often, and I become a stranger, even to myself.
When you avoid facing your pain, you avoid facing yourself
I have come to see that throwing myself into something else, no matter how healthy it looks, is all part of the state of avoidance; it is all part of denial disguising itself as a remedy. It is all part of the pain.
We process pain in stillness. We process, and release pain with self-compassion.
The decision to start processing my pain, talk it through with a friend, write about it in a journal, cry about it without shame, helped me re-experience the beautiful truth that when you talk about your pain, you don’t sink any deeper; you start to rise lighter.
There are deeper truths that we are here to discover about ourselves. And in the act of releasing the pain of a difficult season, those truths start to emerge.
It was journaling that helped me see that I was stuck in a cycle of seeking and avoiding – seeking an answer, a resolution to the pain, whilst avoiding the actual pain; all of its layers, all of its colours, all of its noise. I observed that I was going over and over the same situation in my mind, and wishing I could go back and honor what my instinct had been telling me from the start. I was blaming myself for the mistake I had made, instead of forgiving myself for the mistake I had made.
I think we go over a situation in our heads again and again to try and seek relief from it; we are looking for a clue, an answer, a resolution; the final piece that will give us freedom from the pain of that situation. But the relief can never be found in the thought, or the mental images that are created by the thought. The relief can only be found in the background of the thought. In the stillness, and the silence of the moment that is. And it was in stillness that I was able to start processing the pain. It was with self-compassion that I was able to start releasing the pain.
The universe wants us to be who we are. it shows us, reminds us, waits for us to return to our true selves
The act of writing in my journal each day infused my inner being with a deep knowing that nothing was lacking from this place of self-compassion. I was here, and very much alive beneath the weight of pain. But, thinking about the past, beating myself up about the choices I had made, searching for a different outcome, were all forms of avoidance, and they were covering over this beautiful space and causing me to feel as though something was lacking from within me. I began to observe that the only thing that was truly lacking was presence – the art of getting still and sitting inside the breath of life. As I navigated my way back to the centre within, I was reminded about how fragile we become when we lose touch with our core, our values, our purpose, and start to allow ourselves to believe the voice of the ego, (the voice of fear and separation) that tries everything possible to steal us away from the place of being; our true nature.
Emotional pain is not separate from us. It is part of who we are in that moment. There are not two – there is not me, and then a separate version of me in pain, (a trick of the ego.) There is only me, in this season, tangled and wilting inside the energy of pain. In my experience, you can’t untie yourself from it until you have acknowledged it, listened to it, and accepted it for what it is, and what it is teaching you.
Some of us live in spirals until we recognise the patterns; see the same theme returning
Everything on our path is either a lesson from the past that we haven’t yet healed from, or an opportunity for expansion. Some lessons from the past will show up in a different light, a different shape, but your higher self will always recognise the energy and give you a warning in your gut – ‘this will cause you pain.’ If you honor your instinct, you will break the pattern, (transcend), but if you ignore your instinct, (as I recently did), then you will suffer.
As I venture into a new chapter, free from the weight of my recent struggle, I am reminding myself that I still need to do more work on accepting myself; I need to go back in and examine my root pain. For many of us, more healing work is required once the weight of a painful event has shifted.
Healing work is not as straightforward as just doing some exercise and writing in a journal, (although these are great adjunctive remedies for healing). I am fully aware that if I don’t go deeper into my pain, I could end up finding another distraction, another attachment to cling to and call my life. Something deep inside me attracted an unhealthy situation to appear, and something deep inside me was looking for something I thought I needed; something I had been neglecting to give myself. I know I have pain relating to past trauma that still requires examination, and intense care.
Healing is introspective. There are tools and therapists available, but ultimately, you learn how to do it by yourself, from within yourself, and for yourself.
“the moment you fully embrace
every piece of who you are
is the moment the Universe
creates an even greater space
for you to step into.(be unapologetic about living in this space.)“
april green
“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious ambiguity.”
Gilda Radner
photo: маргарита-жуковская
Listening to silence
…and how I began to free the pain
An old poem:
“When your mind is still.
when your lips are silent.
your heart plays a thousand
songs.”
As I encountered my voice on a blank page each day, I found myself slowing down instinctively. I found myself present with my sense of loss; grateful for the empty pages.
I discovered a new attunement to writing; a craving for the silence before the pen transcribed my words. Sitting in stillness, away from the busyness of my mind allowed me to listen. To the inside. There is no place for the ego in presence, it only operates as past and future thinking, so it dissolves in the present moment. What I was hearing in stillness, alongside the pen moving spontaneously on the paper, was the truth. I worked out how I was truly feeling, and I worked out all the ways in which I could address how I was truly feeling. And I did it on clean, white pages, with new ink that looked like a lifeline. But that’s not even the medicine. The medicine is in the act of being present. With yourself.
There is deep healing to be found in the ending of things; in the releasing of the parts that are no longer serving you, in the space you are left with. Never underestimate how far you have travelled to get to this place.
In the practice of journalling, I came to see that I had two options: I could either unravel in a frantic, messy, almost aggressive way that kept me numb, and living in the past, searching for an answer I was never going to find, or I could unravel in a safe place, in a tender way, in the space of presence, where there is always love, and always sweet nourishment.
And I chose to sit where there was love; I chose to sit with myself.
In stillness, I discovered that there was no void within me. If anything, there was an even greater sense of wholeness. There was an inner language, an inner knowing that reminded me that I had chosen to honour my worth. There was strength in that moment of inner validation.
Learning how to accept your pain isn’t easy, but the more you do it, the more comfortable you will feel with it. It is a tender act: you are getting to hear and learn about your deepest fears. And it is the only way you will be able to get stronger and grow. Writing in a journal every day is a way of silently affirming that you are doing the best you can for yourself in that moment.
Believe in your practice. Over time, it really will make a huge difference to so many aspects of your health and well-being. Mine has become a sacred place, a commitment to myself, a place where I tell myself that I love myself, a place to hold pain, joy, memories, and daily reminders. It is also a reference, a guide for me to see how much I am progressing in my healing journey; a place to remember why I started.
“It’s okay to give yourself permission
to do nothing but make it through today.
(your strength will return.)”
Healing for me, has never been about moving forwards, but about standing still
Each time I stop, rest, and acknowledge that something I am doing is giving me a feeling of dissociation, disconnection from myself and my health, I am spontaneously lifted into a new phase of healing. Help has always appeared on the wave of an inner knowing that translates as surrendering. And, surrendering for me has never been an act of giving up on myself, or my growth, but rather giving up the thing that is hindering my growth. Letting go happens when you make an intentional choice to stop doing what you’re doing, if what you are doing is holding you back, or causing you pain. It happens when you stop clinging to the past and instead, make a conscious decision to step into the present moment. It happens when you soften back into yourself, and the life you have inadvertently put on hold.
Then, healing enters your bones and starts to do it’s beautiful work.
“the feelings we hide
april green
cause the most sensitive
wounds.”
If you are suffering from any sort of mental health issues, you may feel you are to blame, but you are not. You may feel isolated, and you may isolate yourself in the process. You are not a burden. You belong here, and you are loved. There is no shame in needing medical assistance. I had cancer: I had treatment for it. Getting treatment for depression was no different. I can see everything much more clearly now.
Get help. Then extend kindness, love, and patience towards yourself as you start recovering.
“today, I will breathe
the colour of sunflowers
and start again.” Ax
What I learned in the last year:
→ The more I continued to see myself in the self-defeating light of pain, the longer I seemed to remain in that space.
→ Intentionally allowing myself to look back at a difficult time through the lens of compassion changes the depth and colour of the pain. It alters the memory of it; removes the sting.
→ In the space of an empty page, I have the capacity to choose the next chapter, away from the noise of the world.
→ In stillness, and with the intention to go deeper, I can access the part of myself that has been silent for too long.
→ Being with myself is not a place I have always loved. But the more I settle here, the more I am learning what unconditional love feels like.
→ There will be more storms in my life, but no storm ever lasted forever.
→ I don’t need to be moving forward to be living fully.
Some snippets of my life:
A lesson I’ve been reflecting upon lately:
Forgive yourself: you are a human being, writing your bones clean and trying to start again.
I am writing my next book: “softening – poetry and notes on becoming who you already are” and it will be released on 1 December. When the cover is ready, I will share it with you here first.
Nuggets of wisdom / tender reminders:
♡ When you encounter your voice on a blank page, you will find yourself slowing down instinctively. Do this more often.
♡ Each time you acknowledge the sense of well-being that comes from putting your thoughts onto paper, you invite a re-harmonisng of energy into your awareness. Write “all is well” at the end of your journal entry each day.
♡ Write “thank you” after this.
♡ When you are stuck in a repetitive thought system, you are resisting reality which is always right here waiting for you to recongnise it and reconnect with it.
♡ Resisting reality (non acceptance) prolongs the pain and suffering we experience and keeps us from moving forwards.
♡ Writing in a journal is a way of meeting life where it currently is – (acceptance).
♡ The intention to sit and write in a journal (even if you’re writing about the past for a little while) is honoring the reality of the now.
♡ Don’t look for the thought that is causing you pain. Look for the thought that isn’t causing you pain.
♡ The first step to healing is choosing yourself.
Sparks of light:
I bought some journals when I went to Paris, (I have a fondness for beautiful journals, and I usually buy a journal and a fridge magnet whenever I go away), but I also discovered a technique for making my own, below. Once I had made my journal, I glued a postcard onto the cover of each. It feels incredible writing in something you have made from scratch.
Lydia Rink is a collage artist who shows you how. I received a free 5 day tutorial when I subscribed to her newsletter.
This week, I’ve been grateful for:
The light mornings which have made it so much easier for me to rise a little earlier and dedicate more time for writing in my journal. It’s a beautiful time to write with a background chorus of birdsong too. In fact, when I opened my blind this morning, I actually spoke aloud to the birds: “Good morning, thank you for being here.”
FREE magazine. I am producing a free digital mini magazine called “HEAL” exclusively for subscribers. Please make sure you’re subscribed as it will be emailed to you in place of a blog post next Sunday 28th August.
There will be 4 free editions, and you will receive one every 3 months for the next year.
The 4 themes are:
The art of letting go (September)
Practicing presence (December)
Finding your purpose (March)
Becoming who you are (June)
It’s an honor to be here sharing my words with you, and I am incredibly grateful for the time you have taken to read.
Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to expand and grow into this new space. For following along, for reading my work. Feel free to keep in touch: april@bloomforyourself.co.uk
Sending love and light always, April xxx