Midi: "Are you talking to your pain, again???"
"Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain." Joseph Campbell
As I write, it is the middle of the night. I stopped one of my pain meds because the side effects were too complicated. Even now, my mind is quite confused from having used them. “Am I too hot?” “Am I too cold?” “Should I move my leg?” “Should I move my comfortable kittie cat because she increases my pain?”
While I lay restlessly in bed, I thought about what to write about in today’s essay. I wanted to say something about pain because it is something real, and everyone experiences it. I realized that God hadn’t been on my mind very much because I was “too busy talking to the pain.” Finally, I moved to my recliner and administered an ice pack. I started writing on a yellow legal pad because I thought I had an insight into pain. Maybe reading my words would affect how you deal with pain.
Pain can mean many things. It can mean emotional hurt or physical injury. For some people, it means parting ways with someone you care about deeply. For others, it may be standing on the sideline after losing the game or watching your career dreams fall apart. My healing pain from my recent surgery is loud and demanding. Pain is an enormous response to a negative stimulus. It persistently digs its claws into our senses, demanding primary concern.
My surgery took place during Holy Week. Reading my devotions directed my thoughts to the experience of Jesus Christ on the Cross upon Golgotha. Maybe as I suffered physically, I could come closer to Christ in His great hour. Ironically, I didn’t think much about God. All I knew this week was my pain and how “it wanted to talk to me!”
There is always something more important in your life than pain. It is far more helpful to think of pain as a simple irritant than the star of your show! But because pain is such a boisterous promoter of its ego, we must prepare to do a stout mental battle. Ask yourself, “Who controls my life? Pain or me?” I have shared that I enjoy experiencing God in my life, and when I make that choice, the pain begins to fade.
Take a moment to consider, what is the driver in your life. What is it that keeps you grounded and authentic
to yourself? It doesn’t have to be spiritual, but it must be genuinely about you! Now try to pick out that thing living in a place inside (or outside if physical). Juxtapose the two. Which one would you rather be talking to?
What I have shared is all well and good, but we know that pain persists- sometimes for a lifetime. Excuse yourself from that conversation as often as you must. Change the words you use to think about it. I was mad that the Doctor sent a bicycle apparatus for me to work out on five times a day! Is he a NUT? Nevertheless, I pedaled, but I put on a pout. That’s the pain talking. When I realized that is what was happening, I began to thank God for sending this healing gift and for the minds and hands that created it so I could heal. Attitude is just about everything.
Keep talking to your positive persona. It always offers a pleasant conversation. Regarding pain… we may have to cope with it, but we don’t have to talk it.
“Let’s keep pedaling! Shall we?”