If your pain could speak, what would it say?
In John Barnes’s book Healing Ancient Wounds, there is a chapter called “If Your Tears Could Speak, What Would They Say?” That resonates with me, but I always want to change one word, and ask, “If your pain could speak, what would it say?” Healing can come from a wealth of places, from medications to meditations, and somewhere in that arsenal of healing methods, I decided to go inward and ask my pain what messages it has for me. The result was surprising. Physical pain almost always stems from an imbalance, trapped emotions, or any number of unreleased feelings, such as guilt, anger, or grief. Where you feel pain is the first place to start.
Where Is Your Pain?
My main issue has always been headaches. After years of using ice, heat, the Body Back Buddy, a TENS unit, massage, and other methods of pain relief, I embodied the question, If your pain could speak, what would it say? I closed my eyes and asked my headache what it wanted or needed me to know. I received no answers, so I began offering possibilities, to see if something felt right. I focused on things that go on in the head. Do I over-analyze things? Do I need to feel more and think less? Do I live too much inside my head? Do I stress too much? Then I realized that all of these questions were themselves my own answers. Was my own self-inquiry my pain’s way of speaking to me?
I wondered whether this is what was meant by tears or pain speaking. If it was, it confirmed what I had already learned in my spiritual teachings—that everything we need to know rests within us. But I still wanted to know what the emotional or spiritual implications were behind headache pain.
Enter Louise Hay
If you suffer from chronic pain, pain with no obvious biological origin, or are just curious about the emotional connection to pain, I strongly suggest reading the book You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay. She was a powerhouse leader in the mind/body/spirit realm and the founder of Hay House Publishing. In this book, she lists nearly every ailment you can imagine along with its underlying issue. For headache it says: invalidating the self; self-criticism; fear. She says elsewhere in the book that all disease comes from a state of unforgiveness. In my case, I needed to ask myself what I was criticizing myself for and what I needed to forgive in myself. This struck in me a place I had not yet visited.
If your pain could speak, what would it say? Mine would say, Close your eyes, take some deep breaths, think about where I’m hurting, and then let your associated feelings flow. You have all the answers. I’m just your messenger.
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