What’s going on when you experience nothing but pain? Read on…
Gudrun writes:
When I do Focusing, sometimes I find a lot of pain. Or hurt. And the pain feeling stays for a very long time. Just pain pain pain — in the chest, for example. I stay with it but I am unsure what else I can do. I’d appreciate any advice on that.
Dear Gudrun:
So my question for you is, was the pain already there before you started Focusing, or did it come connected to the issue on theme that you were Focusing on?
If the pain was already there, then staying present to it and sensing it exactly is all you can do… and that is not nothing! I have written elsewhere about the power of sensing physical pain just as it is, but without getting stuck in it.
(And just a reminder that some physical symptoms that don’t go away are our bodies’ way of asking for help — like to consult your doctor.)
However, if the pain comes from the issue or theme that you started with, and feels connected to it, then I have a different suggestion.
In that case you can say, “Something shows me this pain, maybe it is showing me what it was like back then.” Because so much of what make current life extra challenging is the shadow of past difficulties that have not been resolved.
In that case it is not only pain, it is also a communication from the “younger you” who went through the painful time in the past. She wants to show you how painful it was (and still is for her)… and it is very important that you be Self-in-Presence and say to this part of you that is showing you the pain (not the same as the pain itself) that you really really get how painful that was and is.
When the pain lasts a long time, that may also be a communication: “Look, this is what it felt like that the pain went on and on and didn’t stop.”
Yet when you can really receive what that “younger you” is showing you, the pain can release… and even relatively quickly.
