First Pathway to Healing - Comprehensively
Embracing Past Pain
Comprehensively embracing past pain is
the first pathway. No one likes being in
pain. Most people try every possible
means to avoid feeling any type of pain whether physical, mental, emotional,
psychological or relational. The
multinational and multitrillion dollar pharmaceutical industry rushes to the
rescue with myriad narcotics to alleviate pain and alter a person’s moods. The entertainment industry of reality
television, blockbuster movies, live concerts and social media provide daily
reprieves from life’s difficulties. Not
surprisingly, celebrity comedians are household names as countless citizens use
laughter to drown out the noise of their fears.
Collegiate and professional athletics have become different venues of
entertainment as sports channels proliferate.
Still, drugs, sports and escapist amusements cannot vanquish deeply
unconscious and longstanding pain. To
resolve substantially hurtful experiences, begin with a hard and unvarnished
acceptance of them.
Current hip-hop culture utilizes two
expressions that help when using this first pathway. “Keep it one hundred.” “Facts, facts.” These contemporary sayings exhort listeners
to resist the temptation to ignore or massage any hard details of any hurtful
experience. Decades ago, on the very
popular television detective series, Dragnet,
Sergeant Joe Friday weekly interrupted witnesses whom he interviewed with the
request that they limit their responses to “just the facts.” Interestingly, examining the origins and
causes of painful experiences often reveals healing methods. We rarely wish to reflect upon acts of
betrayal, deceit, infidelity or physical injury by persons whom we trust. Anger seductively feels empowering. As bitterness and resentment naturally emerge,
these formidable emotions erode any possibility of learning from hurtful and
disappointing experiences. However,
accepting unvarnished facts opens doors to new living.
Honestly embracing past pain negates exaggerations
and excuses. Minimizing deep emotional
wounds and glossing over bodily scars seem appropriate ways to heal. Yet, those strategies do not provide any
lasting resolution. Assuming a victim’s
complex eventuates in a debilitating depression yielding powerlessness,
hopelessness and even helplessness.
Rationalizing pain might result in a crippling addiction or some other
escapist behavior. Embellishing your
past with fictional polishes creates either good storytellers or pathological
liars. Enfolding factual pain into your
life’s narrative becomes “the touchstone of all spiritual progress” and “the
admission price to a new life.”
Accepting your pain offers many lessons
for spiritual development and personal growth.
A determination not to repeat the same mistake is the simplest one. Additional lessons may include cultivating
better personal and professional relationships in response to repeated
terminations. The need of by-pass heart
surgery inevitably forces a person to practice better health and wellness. Divorce reasonably leads to an examination of
a person’s ability to commit to a covenant.
Multiple instances of unrequited love demand an intrapersonal evaluation
of a regrettable pattern of choosing persons incapable of reciprocating love. Debriefing defeat in a political election or
some other failure discloses hapless mistakes and myopic approaches. As “anger turns off the light in the mind,”
it eliminates any potential lessons.
When a person fully embraces pain, he or she reaps a bountiful harvest
from introspection and retrospection.
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