I Am Not My Pain
As I start this beautiful day looking out at the small lake like water feature peering throught the windows and the sliding doors I feel a little pain on my leg. I have what is called lymphedema and not of the most serious I understand. Still it's a little painful. I feel the aches as I walk down the stairs from the bedroom and up the stairs at night. I tell myself "Elliott, you are not your pain". I begin this day helping my mom get down the stairs from the guest bedroom who stayed overnight. Now she is in a hell of a lot more pain than I. I want to share with her that she is not her pain either.
We are not our pain. We cannot go around telling everyone of how much pain we are in. It does absolutely no godly good to share it so constantely. Whenever I call my mom she immediately tells me that she is in pain. I feel for her don't get me wrong but she has truly made her pain a part of who she is. I on the other hand refuse to make my pain so prevelant. I refuse to give it that much play all day long. As the day wears on I feel less and less of it and I begin to just live a pretty normal life. I don't feel so much pain and if need be I take a pain medication and then on to the next adventure: a movie, reading, meditating, an appointment, the gym or just listening to some soft music.
You see when we make ourselves our pain we just add some good insult to injury. We feel it ever deeper and we wear it until we are exhausted and do nothing or we do destructive things like smoke or eat the wrong foods, justifying it because we are in pain. The physical pain the manifests as emotional pain. The physical pain robs us of our joy because we are so very focused on it. If we want to live with the pain we have to make it an incidental, something that is just there but has no importance. Again, if need be we take a pain med and we simply refuse to become our pain. We are not our pain. The pain is an entity in itself that has nothing to do with us because first of all we did not cause it.
Living with pain is an art I think. Living with pain is like an art I guess. You have to accept it sooner than later but you don't have to be it.
elliott collazo gonzalez
We are not our pain. We cannot go around telling everyone of how much pain we are in. It does absolutely no godly good to share it so constantely. Whenever I call my mom she immediately tells me that she is in pain. I feel for her don't get me wrong but she has truly made her pain a part of who she is. I on the other hand refuse to make my pain so prevelant. I refuse to give it that much play all day long. As the day wears on I feel less and less of it and I begin to just live a pretty normal life. I don't feel so much pain and if need be I take a pain medication and then on to the next adventure: a movie, reading, meditating, an appointment, the gym or just listening to some soft music.
You see when we make ourselves our pain we just add some good insult to injury. We feel it ever deeper and we wear it until we are exhausted and do nothing or we do destructive things like smoke or eat the wrong foods, justifying it because we are in pain. The physical pain the manifests as emotional pain. The physical pain robs us of our joy because we are so very focused on it. If we want to live with the pain we have to make it an incidental, something that is just there but has no importance. Again, if need be we take a pain med and we simply refuse to become our pain. We are not our pain. The pain is an entity in itself that has nothing to do with us because first of all we did not cause it.
Living with pain is an art I think. Living with pain is like an art I guess. You have to accept it sooner than later but you don't have to be it.
elliott collazo gonzalez
Comments
Post a Comment