Our first response to emotional disturbance tends to be agitation. Our mind matches the emotional state with thoughts that reflect the emotion. Even a small emotional prick can sometimes turn into agony.
This is the path of suffering — going in circles, creating scenarios, hurting ourselves and others, sometimes even blowing up bridges in our lives.
Learning how to be peaceful when pain arrives is a journey. It teaches us how to separate the emotions, the physical body, the mind and our Selves. The pain is the path.
Being peaceful doesn't mean we don't feel.
The emotions will ask for their dues. And through the body, we feel and release. This is a real need we have. And this is what takes us to the other side of what hurts.
When Emotional Pain Lives in the Body
There are two aspects that challenge us the most during these times: the body and the mind.
Discomfort from emotions, especially from trauma triggers, is a very specific kind of discomfort. It can bring all sorts of sensations.
It is the stuff that drives us to binge eat, smoke, take drugs, drink alcohol or have sex with someone who is a bad idea.
We're trying to make it all go away. We think feeling it is optional - but it's not. Our feelings are not mere suggestions.
Our emotions create inexplicable urges and sensations in our bodies, and this has a power that is difficult to explain.
Your nervous system can literally feel like it is burning.
Learning to be peaceful with these kinds of sensations is a practice - a dance of learning how to manage the tension and pressure without being driven by them.
After my C-PTSD was triggered, it took me a very long time to be able to sit peacefully at my desk and work for more than an hour without collapsing. Just sitting down felt like I was sitting in a bed of needles.
The discomfort was real. And learning how to be with it was part of the healing. Discovering that it all goes away when I do this right was the miracle.
Training the Mind to Hold Steady
When discomfort becomes intense, the training of the mind becomes essential.
What your mind tells you during these crucial times matters.
It's the time to remember that prayer works, that your mantra helps you, that breath heals, and that everything eventually passes. Your spiritual practices and faith will have a very direct impact. What you do every day will save you.
This is not the time for dire conclusions, losing hope, telling yourself off or calling someone who doesn't understand you. Though it might be the time to have a piece of chocolate and watch a sweet movie to help you cry.
Spiritual training helps you do this: hold steady, give yourself a chance to discover your healing power, and learn to be with discomfort while also helping yourself.
And you need this even if you have the best healing modalities and the best therapists or coaches.
There is something that no one else can do for us: learn how to meet our own inner experience. You have to be able to make that choice so you can carry yourself through the agony and out the other side.
Feeling Great Takes Time - Even As You Are Healing
It takes time for trauma in your body to dissolve. There is a difference between making real, tangible healing progress and actually feeling good in your daily life.
Your body won't learn in one day, one week or even one month how to be free from all that stress. Trauma patterns take time to heal, and we each have our own rhythm.
The overall healing can be tremendous.
I would look around at my life and see how far I had come: how tidy my home was, how I could work for hours every single day, how I could regulate my emotions and see situations more clearly. What was unthinkable before is routine now.
But it's like climbing a mountain. You see the wonderful views. You're proud of yourself and how far you have come — but hey, that doesn't mean your legs don't hurt when you continue to climb.
Even if you've done a great deal of work, unresolved emotions can still surface, on and off.
For me, there was a time when, despite the progress, every day felt like I was learning again how to walk through fire.
There were times when the pain seemed to emerge from somewhere far deeper than I could understand.
On a full moon, my womb would release unspeakable pain.
I once prayed to the moon for healing help, and the next day all I did was cry.
This is the mystery of our bodies, souls and minds.
We keep moving, unfolding, healing - and yet something mysterious can still emerge from our hidden depths and hurt.
Progress and pain can coexist.
And sometimes, even when we know how far we've come, the next wave of pain can test everything we believe we've learned.
It doesn't mean we won't be free from it. It doesn't mean we're not on the right track.
When Your Spiritual Strength Is Tested
These are the moments when faith and mental strength are tested.
Not when everything is peaceful and easy, but when discomfort returns and we are asked, once again, to remain steady.
This is your spiritual power coming online.
This is you, as the master, remembering what you know.
You can feel what is here without losing yourself in it. You can sit with it, breathe, work and continue doing what you need to do.
Your take it one breath in turn, as your mind reminds you:
It all passes.
It all heals.
It all changes.
And if not, you accept that too.
That's how the mind helps you love and heal yourself.