Focusing allows us to experience physical symptoms in a different way.
“I Bumped My Toe!”
People think I’m strange. When I’m out walking, and I bump my toe or bang my knee on something, I stop, hold still, and close my eyes. My friends have learned to wait, and not worry.
What am I doing? I’m bringing awareness to the place that hurts, just sensing it as it is, right now. Just allowing the feeling to be there, and taking the time it needs. At first it feels worse, and there’s a temptation to move on and try to ignore it. But I know by now that if I wait, the pain will pass off, after a minute or two, and be really gone. There will either be no bruise later, or much less of one than otherwise.
I feel that this happens because pain is a signal, a message, and when it is really heard, precisely and exactly as it needs to be heard, then it passes on and doesn’t need to keep signaling.
Next week: chronic pain.