Falling in Love with the Problem
My journey with chronic pain & acceptance
Chronic pain sucks. It hurts. It is exhausting. For a long time, I wanted to make it all go away, because who wants to live a life in pain? Not me. I have been so turned off by discomfort. I don't want to feel uncomfortable. And I don't want anyone else to feel uncomfortable either. I don't want anyone to be in pain. I've always wanted to take away my pain and take away everyone else's pain.
I just had a conversation with myself on a walk yesterday about falling in love with the problem. Falling in love with the fact that I deal with chronic pain? Yikes. Falling in love with that other people are experiencing their own problems and their own pain? Yikes. But, I have learned so much from experiencing these pains. There are lessons that I never would have learned otherwise. Resources I never would have sought out. I never would have tried so many things or met so many different people! So yeah, I guess there is some sort of magic in these "pains and problems."
But the thing was, I kept relying on other people to fix me. Like I was broken. I thought, I believed, I was broken and I needed to be fixed in order to be better. To be a better person, more likable, more lovable. To be worth anything at all.
I see now I am whole, with my problems. My problems are part of me, they're part of my life journey. And some of my problems include experiencing chronic pain. I have been listening to the pain, or trying to tune into listening to it since 2017. What the fuck is this pain telling me? Does it serve a purpose? What is the purpose? What would my life be like without the pain? What would my life be like if I could never get rid of the pain- if I had to accept it as part of my life and go on living with it? What would my life be like to stop resisting the pain, and just allow it to exist, and move on? Freedom freedom freedom. There's so much freedom in just accepting what is. It's pretty freaking amazing how much pressure falls off once I start leaning into accepting my current state of being.
[Disclaimer: just because I accept it, doesn't mean I have to like it. I can literally accept that I am experiencing pain and I don't like that I am feeling pain. The point is to start to let go of the resistance to the problem, because once I have accepted it, then I can choose what I want to do about it.]
“I sure felt broken... How the fuck was I supposed to try to accept myself in that moment? I thought everything was wrong with me.”
I first heard this message of acceptance at the end of my first yoga class in 2016, after shavasana. The message that I am perfect just as I am in this moment, I do not need to change anything about me, I am whole. I really fought with that message internally. I couldn't quite understand it. I sure felt broken. I had been told not to do yoga my whole life from doctors. I was wearing leg braces on each of my legs that covered almost the entirety of my leg. I was depressed, suffering with intense anxiety and pain in my body. How the fuck was I supposed to try to accept myself in that moment? I thought everything was wrong with me. I thought I had a shit life and I felt like I had zero clarity around anything. I didn't know what the hell I was doing or what direction I was going in. I just wanted the all the pain to stop, the physical pain and mental pain. I wanted all of it to go the fuck away and never come back.
And then she said to have gratitude for our body for everything that it had carried us through today; the real simple stuff, like getting out of bed, eating, walking into the yoga studio. And then for the other things we may take for granted, like breathing, and our cells carrying oxygen throughout the body. What the fuck, I never thought to thank my body for all the things it could do- and look at all that it was doing! It's like that stuff never even occurred to me before that moment. My eyes were opened. I could finally see that my body was capable. I felt a sense of proudness for myself and my body that I had literally never felt before. In that moment, I was able to begin to see my body for what it could do instead of what it couldn't. What a mother fucking shift in perspective. I began to understand that nobody else out there could "heal/fix me," that my own healing would come from within. That kicked this self-healing journey into high gear. I really began to open up.
“In that moment, I was able to begin to see my body for what it could do instead of what it couldn’t.”
So now as pain or other problems pop up, I can take a look at them and say, alright this is where I am right now in this moment. I can lean into the problem and ask if it has something to tell me, some kind of insight. Maybe my intuition or body is shouting at me because I'm veering off my authentic path and not listening to my inner compass. Once I've accepted that this is my current state of events, I then have the power to choose what I'm going to do about it. I can sit with it, decide what healthy coping skills to use, make an action plan, take action, or ignore it. I don't have to feel fucking stuck inside of it anymore. It's my choice. Letting go of resistance and working with acceptance. And that's acceptance of the whole ride, the ups and downs, peaks and valleys, pleasant and unpleasant. I'm here for this whole fucking ride. And what a beautiful ride it is.
Side note: just because I have these beautiful insights and perspective shifts now doesn't mean it's not challenging. It's still hella challenging when these things pop up. But it's also rewarding feeling my own sense of agency within my life now. That's why all of this is called a practice, a ride, a lifelong journey. There really is no set destination- it's about looking at what comes up in life and using your tool belt of resources, insight, and skills to move through it with grace and compassion, the best you can in that moment.
Can you begin to accept and fall in love with your problems?
What would your life look and feel like if you started to accept your problems and fall in love with them? How would things change for you? Meditate or journal it out and leave a comment on this post or send me an email and let me know.
Remember, your story is important and I am here to support you. 🖤
