Dealing with Pain ~ by Anna Aysea ~ part of the Lost and Losing Series

2 Replies to “Dealing with Pain ~ by Anna Aysea ~ part of the Lost and Losing Series”

  1. Thank you for your article Anna, I’m pleased you found a way of relating to your very painful condition through awareness of a connection with your own existential life, wider than the isolation of your hospital bed. The words ‘rise up’ came to mind as I read how you delved into the wholeness of life and benefitted from recognising the support from life itself. I love your phrase: ‘There is a sense of being carried, being embraced, me and everything I am going through. It is all right to just be and endure without flinching or needing to escape’. I feel sure others will find your article very helpful.
    1. Thank you Mo. Yes, “rise up” sounds fitting. Whatever the experience, it is within the true self, meaning the true self is the bigger reality.

      With the benefit of an added 15 or so years of “dealings with pain” – I am referring here to the psychological impact of physical pain and other adversity, NOT to the natural resistance to physical pain, which is a normal survival mechanism of the body – I would say that there are perhaps 3 phases to the process of dissolving the isolated small “I” and becoming established in the true self.

      First phase is the intuition that there has to be something more than the world of impermanence and the resulting unsatisfactory state of affairs.

      The second phase is searching for some form of a spiritual path that points to this intuited deeper reality; growing to trust that intuition, aided by glimpses into the nature of the true self, these glimpses becoming beacons within adversity, shining brighter at times of greater challenge.

      The third phase is when no experience can veil that what first is briefly glimpsed and in between glimpses trusted and taken on faith. Conditioned reactions of isolation ingrained in the body-mind may still be triggered, as they take long to dissolve, but these reactions loose the ability to obscure awareness of the bigger reality. They do not cause “I” to contract and seemingly become limited and overwhelmed by the current experience.

      _/\_

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