Finding Peace In Pain

In the world of duality that we perceive around us there appears to be sickness and health. However, in Oneness, where the recognition of all that exists being the same thing manifested, there is only Health. As perceived individuals we believe that there is your health and my health, and since we see ourselves as separate, therefore in duality, there must always be opposites to allow the experiences of ‘this’ and ‘that’ , however they are not the truth of who you are.

These conditions only exist because we believe that perfection can be otherwise; because we are believing in duality we must see in duality. Perhaps you have become identified with a challenge, a personal characteristic, dis-ability or body pains. The identification keeps it alive and progressive in your experience.

When you can step back and observe the discomfort that you tell others is ‘always there’ you will find that it is always changing and not continually the same. When you bring yourself into the present moment fully, and connect with your Self, feeling and observing the impermanence of the sensations within your body it can create a space where you can experience the perfection of the present moment, and of your Self. You open your Self to a place where Health can be revealed and experienced. You also become aware of your Self as more than the human body that you thought was ‘you’.

Through Vipassana I learned to detach from pain and to observe it, which allowed for it to be there without the added ‘pain’ that my resistance brought. I became able to notice pain, observe it from a detached view point, and allow it to change on its own.

When you identify with anything, the pain is intensified, and can completely take you over as every part of you resists against it in an attempt to make it go away. Detachment brings more of a free flow to the sensations of pain and discomfort, and allows for the realisation that a lot of the pain we experience is caused through our emotional resistance to it.

Many of us know the challenges of holding a Yoga pose that is difficult, instead of relaxing and breathing into the pose we are more likely to hold our breath, and tense the body against the pose, and struggle to stay in position. However, when you relax and breath into the pose the body becomes free’r and yields more naturally into the pose because the resistance has gone.

When you can see your life as continually changing and not become attached to any identity of yourself, it becomes easier to be detached from any idea or expectation of what should be. Instead you can observe what arises out of health challenges and allow them to be. Depending on the strength of your mind and the perspective you take life can be either fulfilling or not.

All of life can be seen in this way, we can either resist it or accept it. Fight against it and act as if life is a mistake that we have to fix or open ourselves to the possibilities that any event or situation creates space for something new to unfold into.