Using Pain as a Path to Healing

“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” –Rumi

I’m tired.

I finally started working on my hip, which has been bothering me for two years. At times, the discomfort has been so great, I thought I might need a hip replacement. 

So I started physical therapy, which has focused on my pelvis. At my last appointment, when my therapist asked, “How are you feeling?” I answered, “Raw.”

That one word said it all. I didn’t need to add that I had been driving down the road screaming. And that, before that, I needed to cry. I have had so much energy needing to flow. I know that my hip stores many emotions around the loss of my baby decades ago, when my pelvis didn’t open. 

I know this, but I also know that I don’t know. I have learned to let the feelings come without explanation. 

When my clients ask me for explanations, when they say: 

Why am I so tired?

I’m so emotional!

My bloodwork is terrible. 

What’s wrong with me?

I tell them to check in with themselves and ask if they could be processing something deeper. It’s important to trust our bodies’ wisdom, which always tells us what we need. The answer may be a need to flow with life, or to go deeper with a physician or therapist.

This process can be mysterious, even frustrating. When we experience pain, we don’t especially want to welcome it as a messenger. We don’t have the patience to listen to it. Instead, it’s easier to  justify it or explain it away. Usually, we tell ourselves it’s not okay to feel tired or weak or sick. 

But the more we become conscious of our breath, the more we can listen to and hear the wisdom of our bodies. When experiences trigger us, the more we need to do our inner work. 

We are all comprised of body, soul, and spirit. Our soul level, which is where we process our feelings, is at a very high level right now. But rather than surrendering to life on life’s terms, our old fear-based thinking tells us something is wrong if we want to slow down. 

I know that, for me, when things slow down, I get mad, then scared. I don’t have faith. 

But my higher self—and my hip!—is telling me to slow down, especially now. Since my trip to see the grey whales last month, I've been going nonstop. And because it’s Spring, there is a lot of powerful energy to contend with. It’s a time of excitement, of wanting to begin new things. But I still need to be patient and allow things to unfold. 

When I expressed my frustration to my daughter Elyse, she wisely told me, “Our bodies are always changing. Breathwork helps us realign through the changes.”

It was wonderful to get such a wise reminder from my child! 

And now I’m doing child’s pose everyday for physical therapy, which allows me to connect my pelvis to the earth while I do deep breathing. I can feel things moving as I meet these old places of stuckness from a conscious place. 

For example, recently I was brought back to being ten years old, playing on monkey bars, when I slipped and hit my pelvis on the bars. I remember being in so much pain. 

Now, thanks to the physical therapy, I’m having conversations with my body. I’m able to assure it, “It’s safe to let go. It’s safe to relax.” 

Pema Chodron, in her book Living Beautifully, says, “Pain is awakening energy.”

Until we get comfortable with surrendering to being with the energy of pain, holding space and allowing it to speak to us, we won’t heal on a larger, global level. 

Adding breathwork eases the way and makes a path.