This weeks' edition of a life well loved is brought to you by one of my ongoing teachers, my body. Do you view your body as a great teacher? Perhaps I can convince you to do so, as I wax lovingly about how my body teaches me all sorts of things…
So you remember last week? Were you here for that edition of a well-loved life? Where I offered up my bad things to good things diagram? Talked about the science of gratitude and how it rewires our brains? If you missed it, go look. I'll wait here.
All that "yes, bad, horrible things happen and then they always lead to great things that, in the end, are reason for gratitude, yadayadayada…" Which I believe. I really, really do. But that doesn't mean it feels that neat and clean in the real world. We all know that in real life it gets messy and, unless you are super-duper wise and amazing, you don't GET EXCITED about pain, be it physical or emotional. If you do, I want to hear all about the drugs you take in the comments, okay??
One of the greatest gifts in my life is this back pain that I have related to a random health problem with my liver/gallbladder. I've been moving through this process for over two years now, and I really, really, have deep and enormous gratitude for this whole process and the ongoing pain (which is NOTHING compared to what it was a year ago). I know this might sound completely cracked, but without it, I would not be who I am today. I have learned so much about myself and the human condition and my own ignorance and wisdom. In addition to growing my compassion by leaps and bounds, it's been a funny, terrifying, and poignant experience to face a relatively serious health crisis. It also inspired me to cull the best tools and information that I used in healing to design my mind-body health coaching program. So, it really has turned into one of the best things – just like the diagram from last week shows!
How does this relate to a well-loved life of gratitude, you ask? I did just mention my deep gratitude for this ongoing challenge, but maybe you are wondering what that has to do with THIS WEEK. Well, I'm going to tell you about what happened just yesterday, that filled me with awe and additional gratitude.
This week, my pain seemed to increase in severity. Mind you, it wasn't terrible, just there. And whenever I start to feel an increase in pain (which isn't that often anymore), I don't (as you might think), reflect on all I've learned and welcome the pain. Oh no. I tense up and wonder if it's going to get really bad again and start to worry. And, if I've learned anything is that tensing up is a recipe for increasing the pain even more.
Is there any good news here? Yes, here it comes.
So, yes, I started to worry and instead of worrying for say, a few days or a week, I worried for about 2 hours before I remembered. Only two hours before I became super grateful for this pain – because, from what I've learned, my pain only increases when my stress-level goes up. So my wise body is simply giving me information on the state of affairs. That I've been overextending myself a bit. By tuning in, I also "heard" my body telling me that more Yoga, meditation, play time, and sleep are in order. And, those are reasonable requests from my body. From ANY body, really.
And I just felt this wave of loving this part of my body that gives me this information. How could I NOT love this part of my body that is so honest and frank about how I treat it? And I thought to myself, wow, now THAT is a lesson that bears repeating.
1. Listen to the pain
2. Take appropriate action
3. Love that part of you for being so honest and wonderful
Have any examples of how this might look in your well-loved life? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
Post, twittified:
Pain is a great teacher, if you stay open. Can you offer LOVE to the pain for giving you honest feedback to work with?
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