Your pain has not been sent on purpose
Pain can sometimes feel like a darkness so thick and heavy that it just might swallow you whole.
Chronic pain sufferers know this darkness intimately, how it winds its way around you so that you sometimes can't tell where you end, and it begins, sending waves of fear and adrenalin through the nervous system.
Wounds, physical and otherwise, pain, suffering, the things we call bad and dark, evil and destructive, carry treasures for us, too. Not in a "everything has a silver lining" kind-of-way where we can justify pain because of the lesson. Sometimes the best thing you can do on a healing journey is to stop trying to make sense of why you are there and just be there, as you are, hand on your heart, feet on the ground.
I don't believe that pain is sent to us on purpose, that it is all part of God's design and plan that some bodies would react differently to other bodies and carry more or less pain than others. This is where I practice leaving behind meaning-making and committing to the journey:
What healing is for me in this pain?
What messages are being communicated?
What is my body asking of me here at this moment?
And how can I serve myself well?
Thomas Merton said:
"And it is in this darkness, when there is nothing left in us that can please or comfort our own minds, when we seem to be useless and worthy of all contempt, when we seem to have failed, when we seem to be destroyed and devoured, it is then that the deep and secret selfishness that is too close to us for us to identify is stripped away from our souls. It is in this darkness that we find liberty. It is in this abandonment that we are made strong. This is the night which empties us and makes us pure."
I hesitate even to share those words of Mr Merton's because when you're in pain, it seems that the only thing to make it better is not to be in pain. You want to run, hide, numb, turn away from it. But if there is one thing I know, it's this: Rumi said, "The healing for the pain is in the pain."
You don't turn away from it in fear, but towards it with care and love. You nurture it with maternal energy.
The Psalmist wrote:
"O you who dwell in the shelter of the Most High and abide in the protection of Shaddai— I say of the Lord, my refuge and stronghold, my God in whom I trust, that God will save you from the fowler's trap, from the destructive plague. God will cover you with Gods pinions; you will find refuge under God’s wings; Gods fidelity is an encircling shield."
The root word for the Hebrew word 'Shaddai' is shad, which means "mountain" or "breast." References that tie nurturing breasts to God and God's goodness occur over thirty times in the Hebrew Bible.
The Psalmist goes from calling God "Elyon" (most high), to Shaddai, bringing God back down to earth, into our human lives, like a mother taking care of her child.
The Divine present with us.
The first few verses of this Psalm are filled with the feminine imagery of nurturer, healer, protector.
Jesus referenced the Psalm when he said:
"How often I've ached to gather your children, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings…"
These first few verses of Psalm 91 ascribe to God the feminine energies of healer, nurturer, tender carer, who draws their beloved in close to their chest and holds them tight.
And the beautiful thing about this is that when the darkness of pain and wounding come, we can turn towards it with this same energy, knowing that The Divine has already done so with us.
You are here for your wellbeing (not only productivity), and as you attend to yourself with the feminine energies of healing and wholeness, it flows from you to others, creating a flow of wellbeing and vitality to a world crippled with pain.
Mindful Prompt: Maybe this darkness was always meant to be a refuge, a place for you to be healed of wounds that run deep, and the idea that only light is good.
From my upcoming series, "Treasures In The Dark" this week with a subscription in the App.
Written by Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco
