Personal Pain

Personal Pain

The transformation of the pain in our life into something that can be processed is quite a challenge.  The notion that it can be converted into a power source is not even a thought to most people and if mentioned is a laughable one at best.  Pain is to be endured at the least and avoided if possible.  Inoculation and hedging against future blows is the road most traveled…

Personal pain is a reality of ownership.  Not for everyone to know, these are items taken out of their own private box for a very select group.  Sometimes it is a group of only one.  This is the pain that is scary, sticky, and sometimes not yet congealed into a shape that can be corralled with adjectives.  Real and very powerful, this is pain that is a “slow to heal wound”.  Like a broken rib or shin splints, the pain is inside and in certain activities debilitating.  But the knowledge that it cannot be shared is a wound just as real.  This is the boomerang pain.  Residual and layered like a pearl for some, round and smooth.  For others it is layered like an onion, odd in shape and distinct in the layers.  Delivering a new layer of tears with the new and deeper revelations.  Each internal layer built on the pains that went before it. No closure, only insulation to preserve the original offence. 

Personal pain that reaches this stage can metastasize from the knowledge of the hurt to the emotion of the hurt.  When this occurs, the transfer is made to an object that is suitable for the embodiment of the pain.  This is the transformation into “Personal Pain”

It is found in the things that push the limits of protection.  When the pressure squeezes and the top blows, this is the “safe” outlet. As far as the one blowing is concerned.  The willingness to prevent the transition onto a person or object is found in the maintenance of discipline.  This temptation is like a miasma that surrounds you and seems inescapable.  The willingness to yield to it reveals the depth, intensity, or the fermentation period, or a combination of the three.  Combined with the serendipitous placement of a suitable target, the hostility shows.  The embodiment of this is revealed in a single tale.  “ The pain of the separation of families and the grievous losses of millions of people throughout the second world war seem to be more that I can comprehend.”    The emotions change completely when you blame it all on the evil Hitler.  The same can be accomplished with the surprise attack in Hawaii and the blanket suffering, until you personalize the blame on the Japanese. 

This one act of personalizing pain will allow you to find the source of the pain, but if you stop there, you will fester and die.  You need to find the source and recognize it and claim it as the source.  It is this source of pain that needs the balm of Gods’ sovereignty.  And then with the closure that comes, that allows you to move on. Bring it back to a place of recognition that allows the statement to be true, without the truth to be hostile.  This is a safe place to start to grow again.  It will stop it from being “personal pain”.   It may even be a green house in a winter portion of your life.  A place that allows patient progress through the understanding of “that which is more”.  There is always more…

Part of this healing is the capacity to expand.  To open your mind to the idea that the blame must be broader than the single and the only.  This is a turning of the path which allows for the thing to develop.  To grow into something more complex.  It may even include something that you have done to participate in the act that caused the pain.  Even so simple as not complaining when the first evidence manifest itself, and you brushed it off.  Seldom is this cause of pain singular or isolated.  Perhaps there were others that allowed things to continue and to grow stronger.  Perhaps.

“What then?” is the next question.  Blame is sufficient only for the analysis, what of healing? The power to hold this pain in your hand, and to wash away the hostility with the tears of your healing, is a place many will not go.  Some never go there. Some with the aid of a friend.  Some will go on their own only many days later.  The timing is specific to your own walk.  Some are forced by circumstance and some only on their deathbed.  There is a bit of serendipity to this thing called healing.  A series of random events and there it is.  Or perhaps the well-placed crumbs of a friend that has been hoping for so very long for this day… And then it comes.  The washing of the soul with tears. The snotty nose and anger for the lost time.  The lack of Justice and the “why now?” … Perhaps it is this lack of answers which collapses under the load of injustice, time and aching.  But here it is, now.

Personal Pain is now somehow transformed.  Changed from that of the victim to that of the wounded healer.  It is a real place, for those ones which are not yet aware of it.  The one that walks with the limp and tells of the tale to the one that is yet to walk and to go through this place of transition.  The letting go of the dream and the need for fairness wrung through the mill that extracts the cosmic justice from mere mortals.  That the one that will do the extracting can be trusted with such things.  That the pain of a personal nature will be transformed into a story of hope of a personal nature.  Your own.  That day of completion may be yet to arrive, but the day of the beginning has passed.  This day of progress is current and ongoing.  Like a ship on tormented seas you will continue, for there is no other option but to press on.  Tossed and sprayed and not certain of the duration, just certain of the resolve.

Now it is different, for now you have a tale to tell those new to these waters.  To tell of the sorrows and the hope.  The dryness and the torment of yet unfilled promises. The worthiness of the one that calls to your heart, and the friends that have your back.  Personal, yes.  Painful, yes.  A gift of a different nature… yes as well.  I would not call it that in the beginning, but I can now.  I have moved.  The scar is a reminder, of pain that is past.  A very personal pain. A very personal healing.  Perhaps even, a very personal hope.

This is the act of maturing and the transition that is noticed by others.  The heat that is dissipated and the tenderness that came to replace it.  The new degree of calm that replaced the sharp and the pointed comments.  The assurance that justice will be done, and perhaps you are less certain what that looks like now.  The faster moving grace and the slower moving anger can be understood, by those that have seen both in you.  Personal Pain is a thing that can be transformed, but the journey is hard for some.  Give as you would receive, with a bit of patience.  Some healing takes more than you know.  Give to yourself this gift of healing and others will be helped as well.  It is personal to them too. Walk gently among the pedestrians on this path, they may be of some help if you will let them.  They have a story they want to set free.  Listen and grow.