How I escaped from a Lifetime of Chronic Pain

Running away from myself didn’t help (Image courtesy of worldofmiri.com)

And how I returned to myself

I’ve been in pain as long as I remember.

Every day.

Shoulder-ache. Headache. Neck-ache.

Pain in my legs. Wrists. Arms. My belly or my back.

If one spot is fine, the pain appears in another one, moving through me without a conceivable pattern, up or down, left or right. The pain is not always sharp. Most of the time it’s a dull, nagging type of pain. It sits in the background. Occasionally, it surges and claims its spot at the front of my consciousness. Those days are tough because the pain numbs out everything else.

When I have a day without pain, it feels like Christmas and my birthday at the same time. On these days, I can reconnect to the giggles inside. I can feel my light sparkle. I feel great about myself.

Back to the pain:

• Is this normal?

• Is this as it’s supposed to be?

• Is this what it feels like to be in a human body?

I remember when I first took notice.

I must have been about thirteen years old. My right leg hurt. The pain started at the top and slowly moved its way downward until all of my leg was in pain from the bottom to my toes. It was difficult to walk. The doctor did a series of x-rays and prescribed a form of therapy which did not help. The pain eventually disappeared by itself.

The doctor attributed my leg pain to an uneven pelvis. He predicted I would never be able to walk or stand for prolonged time. Of course, he was right. He was the doctor after all. I avoided standing or walking for prolonged times at all cost. Whenever I did, my back immediately produced pain. Did this happen because of the doctor’s prediction? Or was there really something wrong with my pelvis? I never found out.

Today, I know my back was weak and my posture bad. None of this helped. Later, when I started running regularly and doing yoga, I found prolonged standing much easier. I shifted my posture. Today, I can stand for many hours and walk.

This taught me the importance of tending to our bodies.

It is vital to keep our bodies moving, but it is as vital to give them the rest they need.

Still, I never found a way to deal with my pain. I guess I accepted it as normal, as a part of me.

The pain was always there

I saw a few doctors about my headaches and back pains, but no one could ever find anything. I tended to my pain myself. When it became unbearable, I took a pain reliever but I tried to get by without them. I suppose a part of me knew they were not helping, merely glossing over the symptoms.

Throughout my early adulthood, I did lots of sports to keep my sense of sanity. I felt better afterwards, and if I was lucky this lasted a whole day. Overall, I deemed my lifestyle healthy.

I wasn’t aware of the toxins within me (check out my other blogs for details): a virus hiding in my organs, the consumption of food my body didn’t agree with, toxic mental patterns and emotions, energies that didn’t belong to me…

• I never questioned the way I felt.

• I thought this was normal.

• In my world, this was what a body felt like.

The end of my thirties brought on my health crisis with full blow. Sports could no longer fix what was off. I could not hide away the symptoms anymore. My body didn’t cope.

Eventually, I couldn’t handle it any more

On the journey that followed, I worked through many areas of my life: optimizing my diet, balancing my nutrient intake, detoxing heavy metals, clearing the virus impacting my organs, rebuilding my gut system, releasing emotional triggers, establishing personal boundaries, balancing being and doing, and clearing trauma.

Still, my pain persisted.

It was frustrating.

I had many breakdowns, crying, weeping, and screaming for help.

I also had better days. This heightened the frustration due to the stark contrast between the better and the pain-filled days.

The pain kept returning.

I wanted to understand why.

My thoughts got drawn back to the beginning of my healing journey when we visited friends in New Zealand. It was a relaxing week. We stayed in the garden most of the time, took walks, and connected to our inner selves through meditation. One morning, I returned from a run and held on to a tree for stretching. Suddenly, awareness of my whole body filled me. With this, I mean I could perceive my body from head to toe. For me, this was a completely new experience.

Being in my body

I could move my awareness through my body. I could consciously connect to my belly or feel into my feet. I had never experienced this before. It was sensational. I felt whole and complete. I could process and handle life better. I knew intuitively what I needed and what my next step was. I communicated with ease and grace. I was me. Life flowed.

My spiritual teacher later told me I had experienced grounding fully into my body and owning my field.

I was aghast.

Where had I been before?

I learnt that our souls/auric fields form the blueprint for our physical bodies as Barbara Brennan explains (“Core Light Healing” published by Hay House, p.11):

The physical body is the last of the four aspects of our being. The HEF (Human Energy Field = aura) is the foundation and the unfolding pattern or template for the physical body, coming into existence before the physical body. The physical body is nested in the HEF and is completely dependent on the three deeper dimensions ( = the Core Stare (natural divine source of life), the Hara (intention or purpose) and the HEF) as well for its origin, its life, its growth, its shape and its health.

This made sense; however, I didn’t understand why I hadn’t been in my body before. Also, I noticed I didn’t stay there. I wasn’t used to being in my body. With practice, I learnt to notice when I “jumped” out of my body, which happened frequently. Whenever a situation arose that triggered uncomfortable sensations, I left.

Not being in my body didn’t feel great. I felt light-headed, in overwhelm, unsure, and confused. Moving through life from such a space was the opposite of going with the flow.

I wanted to understand why being in my body wasn’t my default and why I jumped out often.

I suppose, like everything, there was a combination of reasons. These are the ones I identified:

• I am an empath, which I learnt during my healing journey. I definitely know what it means “to feel too much”. I suspect I stopped being in my body as a child because I was overwhelmed by feelings. There was too much pain, too much grief, and too much of everything. Part of these emotions were mine, but a large part wasn’t. As a child, I didn’t understand any of this, so I must have subconsciously decided it wasn’t safe to be in my body. “Feeling too much” scared me. I disconnected.

• Energetically, this pattern showed up as a block in the shape of slab which separated my head from my body. This inhibited the flow of energies. I could not move my energies below my neck. My energy healer had to clear this block several times. This meant I spent most of my life “in my mind”. Overthinking is one of my main traits.  

• Spending most time in my head led to neglecting my emotional body. I only learnt about the importance of processing emotions when I explored healing during my health crisis in my early forties. 

• Part of my energetic blueprint was filled with my own trauma and thus impacted my body. This contributed to “feeling too much” which did not help with the idea of being in my own body.

• I had poor boundaries. I wasn’t filling my energetic space with my “own” energy, but allowed other energies to come in. When I first saw my energy healer, she cleansed my second and third chakra which were filled to the brim with other people’s issues. I had taken on their woes because I thought it was my duty to help them and this was the only way I knew. I wasn’t aware I disempowered others by depriving them of their learning challenges, something I still struggle with today.

• I wasn’t aware of my own power. By this, I mean the size of my energetic field. I suppose there was a vacuum to be filled because I didn’t claim all of my energetic space. Into this vacuum I attracted thought forms, expectations and other energies that were not mine but could attach to my own unresolved trauma

I was afraid to be me because I didn’t like certain aspects of myself. I shunned those parts away into my shadow self. I didn’t want to see these parts of me. Being fully ‘me’ would have asked me to take responsibility for who I am.

Being in my body had the effect that I started feeling everything

I had avoided this part of me for a long time. I quickly understood why. It was too much. There was too much to feel and I was overwhelmed. I could not cope with the avalanche of emotions wrecking though me. I spent days crying. I didn’t understand where all these emotions were coming from nor did I know how to cope with them.

I had to work many years on clearing and cleansing out old belief patterns and toxic mental patterns that served as entry tickets for other energies to come in. Next, I had to learn to discern what was mine to carry and what wasn’t. I had to work on keeping my boundaries strong by filling my container with my true love and light. Moving my body through running, yoga, and martial arts helped me with clearing out energies that didn’t serve me anymore.

Still, the pain came back.

Whenever I allowed myself to drop into the core of it, I could feel how I was contracting my muscles. I was clinging to my patterns. It is strenuous to hold on to energy that wants to keep moving. Try placing a lid on a pot with boiling water and keep the steam in. It requires much strength. This is what I did. I held onto my pains for dear life because this is what I knew. I was always like this. This was normal for me. I grew up in a body that constantly felt pain. It was hard to let go of this.

In theory, I knew what to do.

How difficult is it to change a life-long pattern?

It can take years. It requires courage and stamina. I was continuously challenged to take yet another look at myself and my inner saboteur. I stopped counting the occasions when I had to practice letting go, having trust, being willing to change to open up to the new. I hit my limit again and again. Every time I believed I couldn’t keep going, I somehow did. It was tough. How could I keep holding my light when pain was numbing all of my senses?

Chronic pain alters your personality.

It gnaws at your joy, day after day.

Still, I knew I’d done the big work. It’s taken me many years to get to this point.

Now was the time to let go of this last bit.

I knew I had to let everything flow through me and try not to control it. I had to surrender. This helps me with sensing my own power, not only in my body, but also in my whole auric field. I’m learning to fill all of my space with my energies and to keep my own energy moving.

Sometimes, it’s working. On other days, it’s not.

And that’s ok.