Pain, emotional pain.
There are a couple of stages.
First there is the pain you feel because it’s deep in your being, in real time, working on you. And than there is the pain you feel when it’s ready to be released.
The first pain is the hurt you’re carrying with you now, today. It’s in the vicinity of your core. It doesn’t matter when this pain was inflicted, if you’re still healing, it’s real time pain, here and now.
The second pain is pain on its way out. It’s your current pain while transforming, loosening, lifting. And believe it, this is just what you want to have happen, for the pain to leave you.
Except… departing pain isn’t any lighter than other pain, it can be just as wretched. It’s like the last few heaves of getting poison out of your system, just when you thought you’d purged it all, your body lurches with one more leap to make sure the toxins are out of your system. That last convulsion can catch you completly off guard. Where the heavens did that come from?
Identify your pain.
Present pain says: “I’m dealing with the pain. This pain needs my attention”.
Present pain needs time, take it, such is life. It requires courage, tears and therapeutic conversations, pilgrimages into stillness and raging campfires. It’s the recovery process you’re in. It’s what you’re managing to some degree of dark nights of the soul to occasionally triggered sadness.
Departing pain says: “I’ve learned all there is to learn, what I can learn, from this pain. I’m letting go. This pain is done with me and leaving me”. This kind of pain comes after you’ve fully felt the present pain. The pain will naturally lift after you’ve gone through it, after the the pain is through with you. One more time: you have to feel it to free it. So, let’s say you’ve done the work. You’ve felt that pain, you’ve learned so much from that pain. You’re done with that pain.
You’re feeling free, present, and joyous and you moved on and then, all of the sudden it hits you, a gob smack full front, more of that same pain. What the heavens, really?! Didn’t you work through this already? You were doing so well and then you are crying again? Pain, again? What the heavens!
Departing pain tends to catch you off guard, completely. Which can make you get all judgmental again because you’ve come so far, done so much work and, and, and.
Yes, you grew and like a wave you grew, retreated, grew bigger, recognize your expansion and contraction cycle and grew some more.
If you’re in pain over something, you’re going to keep doing your healing work. Just be gentle on yourself, keep calm and call on your inner strength. And if you’re in departing pain, here’s what you can ‘do’: not judge nor blame yourself, you have done nothing ‘wrong’. Yes, you’re going to feel the pain, you can do this one more time, you can. This pain is leaving, remember. It’s never going to be this bad again. It’s not wounding you deeper, it’s just cleansing you on it’s final way out. It’s just that when you’re in pain, you have to feel it to free it. Take this to heart. The final round is a purification process. You’re about to fly.