Chronic Pain—The Will to Live—What Can You Do Spiritually

When the chronic pain is excruciating, or you are unable to do what you used to do, and you seem to be making little to no progress in your healing, you may find yourself wanting to give up.

I remember a day when I was lying in my bed, dehydrated, in pain, depressed and not sure I wanted to go on. At that time in my life, it would have been fairly simple for me to have simply stopped eating or drinking and allow myself to slip away. I hadn’t eaten any food for days and I was having trouble getting any water to stay inside me. It would have been easy, but I wouldn’t have been true to myself.

So, I said to myself, What do you want to do? Do you want to live or do you want to die? And whatever you decide, you’d better be able to live with your decision on this side or the other side of the veil.

You know what I decided. It wasn’t easy to choose to live. I had to force myself to drink water and had to talk myself into keeping it in my stomach. I had to give myself permission to rest deeply and surrender my impulses to be active too soon. I had to learn how to nurture myself—something I wasn’t very good at doing.

Then, I needed to heal the deeper wounds—the emotional wounds that made me so sick in the first place.

Are you wondering what stopped me from going over to the other side? It was simple. I hadn’t experienced a happy and full life yet and I didn’t want to cheat myself out of the opportunity. What I didn’t know then that I understand now is that I wanted to experience the kind of self-love that fills every cell of your mind, heart and body. That’s happiness.

I needed to learn how to hold myself as I am without judgment or expectation, so that there was room for happiness. With the happiness came greater ease in my body. We tend to think we will be happy when our body is no longer in pain. I discovered it works the other way around.

I spent many days and nights learning how to be in compassion with myself. I would literally wrap my arms around my legs and rock myself. I sang to myself. I cried. I listened to what I was feeling. I discovered that silence, presence and compassion heal.

At the end of October, I’m facilitating a workshop where women will learn the ancient practices of being a woman. This practice takes us into the heart of the Sacred Feminine—stillness, presence and compassion.

This energy is missing from many of our lives, where we have been taught to value achievement and learned to hold on to our regrets and resentments. Some of us learned so well, we have been achieving ourselves sick. We have been regretting and resenting ourselves into illness.

These patterns have to be unlearned. The missing ingredient in balanced, healthy living personally and planetarily has been our ability to enter the compassionate silence within us, and allow ourselves to be held in its soothing love. This is where we give birth to ourselves—whole and free. It is also the place from which we give birth to action that is healthy and life-giving, rather than depleting. http://www.newdreamfoundation.com/womens-retreat.htm

Maybe the Sacred Feminine seems like a strange concept to you in regard to healing. Maybe it resonates with your heart and soul. Whatever you call it, I know now that this energy of compassionate stillness gives powerful healing—and life.

If I had known about this when I was ready to give up, it is where I would have taken my spirit immediately. But I didn’t know. I didn’t have a guide yet. I had to discover it little by little on my own, as so many of us do.

What do you do when you are ready to give up? I don’t know what you will do. That is your ultimate choice. However, I can tell you that deep within you is an energetic space that is waiting for you—waiting to love you as you are.