Avoidance, Pain Relief and Comfort

These are our thoughts feelings and experiences. We accept responsibility for them. We understand your journey may be different. We honor and respect that. Wishing you effortless joy. Eloise and Jake

Avoidance, Pain Relief and Comfort.
I believe in effortlessness. It is most likely the most common mantra or intent that I use. When the mind body and spirit are in alliance there is effortlessness. When mind heart and intuition are aligned there is effortlessness. However there is no such thing as nirvana. If I lived in a state of bliss there would be no growth, no movement, no change and ultimately I would get bored and die.
It is sort of like a room full of people all smoking pot and saying: “wow, dude this is amazing.” And it possibly is. However, to remain in the room, means to miss the beauty of the world. And as amazing as that feeling is at that moment, it would become mundane, and at some point one would have to get up and go get more pot, (leave the comfort zone) And would need money, to pay for it and get food and water, and would need to leave that nirvana to bathe and need to fulfill basic requirements of living, So from this overly simplistic image, it becomes apparent that I need a variety of things in life to survive. And to strive to limit my experience to only joy and ecstasy would diminish my human experience.
I find the word balance appropriate here. There needs to be work there needs to be play, there needs to be up for every down, and I need pain as much as I need pleasure. I know in my small little world, that
I would never be able to appreciate tall without short, and big without small and abundance without poverty. Contrast is a mechanism to enhance appreciation.
I was watching a movie about baseball recently where the player was describing the reasons for his current slump. He said “I remember when I loved hitting the ball. Now all of my energy is going into not missing the ball.” His energy was going into avoidance, and not into the pleasure. And when he started to love hitting the ball, and not feeling bad when he missed the ball, he started hitting the ball more often.
If I focus on joy and gratefulness and awareness on the times I am without pain, and embrace and accept the times I have pain then life will have a balance that brings about comfort.
As pleasure oriented as our society is in advertisement and media wise. The pleasure that is offered is actually presented as a mechanism to avoid pain. And it is in this avoidance that I set myself up for more pain.
I have just recently discovered that sitting in my pain, and getting comfortable with my discomfort can bring about change and awareness in such a dramatic way that old patterns are dissolved and growth and new forms of energy patterns created.
The purpose of pain is not to make my life miserable, it is to give me information, If I touch a hot stove, I soon learn not to touch the hot stove again. If I lift an object that is too heavy, and I injure my back, I learn not to do that, or I learn to strengthen my back.
It is the same with emotional or mental or spiritual pain. I learn not to do certain things, or I learn to strengthen that area of my life so that I can do things better. At least that is the way it is suppose to work. But instead I often experience the feeling of pain, and begin to avoid whatever it is that may cause that pain, and alter my behavior so redundantly that same thing keeps resurfacing over and over again.
If an issue is arising, and I am either repeating the same cycle over and over again, or if I get stuck in a cycle of pain, I am learning that it may be because there is a piece of information I am neglecting to embrace. Pain is there to give us information. (There is a new wave of thinking that suggests that avoidance may be a contributor to illness and dysfunction.) But that has to be balanced with avoiding what will hurt you, but not necessarily avoiding the discomfort that will show you what is hurting you. You keep exposing yourself to the hot stove, to the toxic influence. You will get damaged. Even if you keep avoiding the feeling of the pain by numbing it.
Someone once said to me: “Think about what it would be like if you were no longer afraid of pain, no longer afraid of discomfort, no longer afraid of confrontation. How would your life change if you embraced, and believed that each one of those difficult experiences held for you a gem of resolution and joy.?”
I have been challenged recently with this journey. I continue to believe in effortlessness. But I also know that when it stops being effortless it is usually is because I have started down a wrong path. Or it is because I am moving too fast to even notice my path. My new goal is to listen when it gets uncomfortable. (find that piece of information the situation is trying to give to me) And say: “ok you have my attention, I am listening, speak to me.” And it means listening to that information, even when it is not initially clear..
So I simply say: “OK I hear ya” When I listen, and redirect my path or find the gem, the effortlessness usually returns.
I do think it is ok, to have a place of comfort. (Like going home.) But if I stay in that place of comfort all of the time, I miss so many of the clues. I need to move forward.
Obviously just as I need to avoid touching a hot stove to prevent pain and injury. I need to avoid things that cause damaging pain. Our society however often promotes an environment where it is acceptable to be exposed to pain. Then it supports permission to repress, deny ignore or medicate the pain. Because of that cultural attitude I am influenced to continue be exposed to things that will cause pain.
I have patients asking me for little white nerve pills all of the time, so that they can stay in bad marriages, stay in bad jobs, and stay in situations that if they would only leave, they probably wouldn’t need that little white pill. I have patients who ask me for pain pills, but really aren’t interested in healing. Nerve pills and pain pills and analgesic of any kind, in my opinion, are short term solutions and can greatly facilitate healing. But in the absence of healing efforts. Only promote long term avoidance.
Physical pain, in my opinion is a symbolic representation of spiritual injury. Very real, very legitimate, but often unrelieved without simultaneously examining the issues that predisposed one to the injury or illness.
I also think a lot pain that we experience has big picture implications. So much of my painful periods in my life has allowed me to be more understanding and empathetic to my current clients. “I used to beat myself up for not being able to get rid of the pain of injury symptoms. I kept thinking that if I just thought right, felt right and behaved right I would be healed. I think that is possible, and part of the process, but the timing of such changes often has to do with the long term lessons. Like learning persistence, like finding cures, like developing stamina, like trusting in the unknown, (like big picture purposes or even karmic balance.)
Being in pain allows me sometimes to slow down, feel sorry for myself and be nurtured by others. (feeling sorry for ones self not being a bad thing, but something we need to do often, and has therapeutic benefit.) (Feeling sorry for myself is useful when nurturing and self care has been compromised.)
So I am looking at contrast at this time in my life, and as I get comfortable in discomfort, the gems seems to surface more quickly, the discomfort turns to joy, and the joy and the discomfort become one. And effortlessness even in change and chaos become peaceful.
Today I might be down, but tomorrow I might be up. Today I might be full, tomorrow I might be hungry.
Today I may be needy, tomorrow I may be satisfied. Today I may be connected, tomorrow I may be alone. I think it is all good, and it is ALL AS IT IS SUPPOSE TO BE. Effortlessly balanced and moving forward.
PS how this translates into real life;
I am leaving a job I was comfortable in (because my intuition said to, and when I said to myself: “no I am not leaving” the job got uncomfortable)
I am taking a job that is actually outside my comfort zone, because it is what I need to do to go to the next level professionally.
I am loosing weight because I stopped eating to ease distress, but started to eat to nourish.
I am feeling healthier because I am exercising and moving even though at times it is uncomfortable to do so, It is all good, and it is ALL AS IT IS SUPPOSE TO BE. Effortlessly balanced and moving forward.