The Spirituality of Pain

I remember when I was in the beginning process of meeting my shadow…the world seemed upside down; every “normal” mechanism wasn’t working for me, for they all were about teaching me to get rid of my pain. Dogma would say “You just need to repent, admit you are a sinner and that is all you will ever be, and beg for God’s mercy—and have faith if you don’t feel the love of God after getting down on your knees is because you need more faith”. The radical New Age movement seemed just the opposite – “just focus on the positive and all will be well”. I was left torn and confused…were it not that I have a rebellious spirit, I would have been left feeling not just inadequate but permanently broken. For a while, though, I tried both their paths…. trying to be “worthy” or get more pleasure, depending on which path I was on. Either path, however, seems to demand wearing a mask….” fake it till you make it” — trying to be some ideal human being, always pleasant and exoterically forgiving. I realized both paths were eating at the very divine fire within me. Yet, I also had to face the fact that I too had imposed idealizations of what I needed to be in order to be someone—I needed to be the perfect Person, Counselor, Tantrica or Yogi—trying different relationships, different methods, different strategies. This trying was filled with suffering, drama, disappointment, unhealthy attachment, resistance, pressure, and expectation.

Then, the real spiritual journey began when I stopped trying to do things the same way as most and understood my path and the way the Divine expresses itself in me is unique; as it is for each one of us, yet in our neurosis to all melt into one, we use maladaptive unhealthy habits to cope with the pain and in our delusion we call such failure “well adapted”.

I had to fight for my sanity; the wrestling between the programming society teaches us, the irony of both extremist paths and my own traumas….it can all be as Nietzsche called it “the maddening descent to the reclaiming of one’s own Übermensch” – where one has to be willing to walk through Hades and meet the dragon in order to become one’s own hero.

I decided to succumb…to die if you must to the fight that ensued between all the already-mentioned factors and concepts I was taught. At the moment of feeling broken and defeated, I also felt liberated and chose to be fully present and fully alive with my direct experience. When I began to accept my shadow, to surrender to whatever it was showing me in my inner and outer world, when I began to truly listen to my spirit and my body – using my mind and the subconscious wisdom accumulated from the traumas and my own mistakes as a compass to help me navigate—not the motor, but the compass—this helped me navigate my emotions and my heart with consciousness rather than impulse.

It is for this reason that in all my sessions, I guide people to start asking the right questions…

So many people ask the wrong question, whether they know it or not, and that question is inevitable: “How can I get rid of my pain and discomfort?” or “How can I control my life to avoid pain and discomfort?”

The right question is, “How can I be deeply open to what is here in my experience with tenderness instead of resistance?”

In this piece, I would like to explore why the authentic spiritual path is not an absence of pain but rather a full embrace of it.  Why pain is not the enemy but a teacher and that teacher can be a hard one, as is the case for most when we choose to run away from it, or a loving one, as it is the case when we choose to look at it with curiosity – it will still hurt, but the pain is much more manageable and not futile – for when we fight, repress it or try to run from it, we learn nothing. 

If we were to learn to see pain from a different light and angle – a more stoic one, we would benefit so much more, so that when we are scared, we can shake. When we are sad, we can cry. When we are angry, we can growl – without making anyone our savior or enemy, for it’s okay to feel pain and anger…it is not okay to hate, and that is a choice. Hate comes from lacking the maturity to become responsible for our own emotions. It is unnatural and unhealthy to deny our pain or anger; this is why it is not good to teach people to “forgive” without processing. Forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves but only when we process emotions and set healthy boundaries or walk away when necessary. But to claim to be forgiving without doing the work is the main reason why there is so much hatred in the world manifested in passive-aggressive and incoherent behaviors.

When we learn to validate our emotions and to respect the right of others to theirs, we annihilate the potential for hate and learn to just be with what is without resistance – this doesn’t mean surrendering to anything and melting into one…but surrendering the desire to want to control the choices of others while developing a stronger foundation and appreciation for our own right to be… then we deepen intimacy first with our own selves and then with others through vulnerability -the ability to be light and dark without shame – rather than creating separation through the mind’s narrative of needing to be perfect, pleasing and saintly, which only develops a need to control others because we ourselves don’t have real autonomy over who we are.  The more autonomy we have over ourselves, the easier it is to just be without fearing the judgment of others or the punishment of exclusion for being different.  The more autonomy we have over ourselves, the less we demand others to think, feel, and be just like one of us, and we do this in balance, without falling to other delusional extremes.

This meeting and integrating of the shadow is deep, brave work, but one that leads to becoming “Free Spirited” – the ability to be self.

A lot of people pursue spirituality as the answer to their pain. “If I become awakened, I won’t have to feel pain anymore.” That’s not true.  Awakening does not mean that you are no longer human; as long as you are human, you will feel pain. It is part of the deal of being in a human body and experiencing separation from the origin and separation from our own bodies, psyche, and spirit because of the programming imposed – we have been taught to be compartmentalized, to dissociate, to live in dissonance and these most see as a “triumph” – I guess because it shelters them from their own emotions and the painful experience of having to confront that which they deny each day…the right to be themselves vs the role they are supposed to play.

When we LIVE Tantra, we do not divide human and spiritual, and we do not think that life or relationships should be free of pain.  We realize that pain and pleasure will always be in the flow of life and that we must fully embrace the mess as well as the bliss of the human condition.  

We realize that any outer conflict is a reflection of our inner conflict and resistance.  Why?  Because they are our closest reflection.  Our partners show us everything that is missing inside of us as well as everything that is unconscious within us.  Of course, our relationships are going to bring up pain! And yet, our primary motivation (whether we are aware of it or not) for many relationships is to save us from our pain and lead us to the yellow brick road of happily ever after – a Disney World version, but happiness isn’t the same as completeness; happiness is just another momentary emotion, while completeness is being able to feel all emotions good and bad without losing our essence.

As we found out in Wizard of Oz, the yellow brick road that we label as happily ever after, is really something deeper; it is a hero’s journey – filled with not only joy but also challenge.  As we come to know ourselves and break free from the confines of our known safety, the heart and mind must also break open.

We have this idea that someone special, a soulmate, the “one,” the perfect partner, the wizard at the end of the road, will have the answers to take us “home” —  making the other responsible for our life, in the process we shackle the very people we claim to love, when in reality actions like that are not love but a deep fear of meeting our own shadow.  Loving someone does bring expectations from both parts, and these should be addressed openly, but we also need to be mentally mature enough to know that being vulnerable does not give us the right to demand someone to sacrifice his or her right to move on if that is what that person needs for his or her own expansion….to deny someone his or her freedom to choose isn’t love but control, false ego and punishment.   NO Divine would ever bless the slavery of another human being, for the Divine itself is free and mutable, ever-expanding…as are we, for we are its unique expressions.

There’s nothing wrong with experiencing fear of loss, abandonment, pain, anger… it’s part of the human experience and partly the pull to intimacy and relationship, but unless it’s fully exposed and integrated, and unless you have a willingness to get honest and see it for what it is, it remains an unconscious shadow that consistently creates suffering.  You are the only one who can take you home – home to the realization that whether you are feeling pain or pleasure, you can be at your ease.  You can release the stories and the narratives and be with your direct experience, free from the resistance to pain that creates suffering, for pain and suffering are not the same.

Resistance manifests in archetypal expressions such as the Victim, the savior, the diplomat, the tolerant one, and the all-forgiving…. All are reflections of an inner wounded child and a lack of mental and spiritual maturity.   If you would like to look deeper into these shadows, you will discover the power to ignite your power, so even on the days you hurt, you know who you are and why you are here….if you can know that coherently (mind, body and soul), then you will always get up without losing your essence.  

The seeking of fulfillment through another is similar to seeking freedom from pain through spirituality.  Seeking freedom from pain through spirituality has the same hope that it will take all your pain away. The same dream that you will be complete, whole, always happy. The same delusion that somehow your life will be perfect, and you will have everything you want. The false ego is looking for something outside itself in order to be satiated, elevated, or made complete, at least temporarily. This creates unrealistic expectations that we shouldn’t feel pain in our relationships because they are there to fulfill us and free us from our pain.  Likewise, we shouldn’t feel pain if we are ‘spiritual’ because of the idea that spirituality is there to fulfill us and free us from our pain.

Inevitably, however, whether you are ‘spiritual’ or not, whether you are in a relationship or not, you are going to feel pain.  And if you expect spirituality or a relationship to save you from this pain, you are going to be disappointed and think that there is something wrong with your relationship or something wrong with your spirituality.

THE DREAM BECOMES THE DRAMA

When our expectations of the perfect life are unmet, we create drama out of our resistance to pain and keep searching for perfection that doesn’t exist. The dream of relationship becomes the drama of relationship and the dream of spiritual awakening becomes the drama of spiritual awakening. 

Very often, what you call love is the feeling of the other giving you what you want in order to make you feel good.  When inevitably, the other doesn’t give you what you want, when they don’t respond to you the way you were expecting, when things don’t go according to plan or they do not live up to your ideal vision of them, you create separation in some way through withdrawing (flight) and/or arguing (fight).

Internally, you abandon yourself and/or create an internal war from your resistance, which manifests a tight knot in your belly. 

What if you turned tenderly toward your pain and surrendered to its lessons instead? What if you could move and breathe and release that knot through your full acceptance of whatever arises in your human experience? 

HOW DO I OPEN TO MY PAIN INSTEAD OF RESISTING IT?

You open to our pain when you:

1. No longer run from it (flight) or project it (fight)
2. Turn your attention inside rather than outside (pause, come into stillness and breathe)
3. Accept it and stay present in it (be here, now rather than in the narrative of the past or future) 
4. Express and release it (allow it to move through your body with breath, sound and movement)

You may also need some bodywork by a skilled practitioner, a wonderful and often necessary support for releasing deeply held trauma and tension locked in the body and mind.

 Individual or couple sessions are a great way to identify and work through debilitating patterns in your life and relationships. In my sessions; whether as a facilitator or when I have had to sit on the receiving end, I learned –and still learning, for life is constant and so are our emotions and circumstances- or helped others learn to….

– Value, protect and care for Self

– Cultivate healthy masculine and feminine

– Empower inner and outer relating

– Overcome addictions, anxiety, depression & stress

– Get through difficult times such as relationship breakdown

You will also experience Energy-based Body Work which includes:

– Flushing trauma from your nervous system so that you can be in your ease

– De-armouring the heart and the sex center so that you can expand into more love, pleasure and self-compassion

– Awakening your consciousness and sexuality 

We are taught to view pain as if ours is unprecedented in the history of the world, yet history teaches that the things that torment us most are the very things that connect us with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive…because we are all human. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it and it never works; it is time refocus how we see pain.

“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”
― Jim Morrison