The tears began to flow, and I poured out a story of everything being “a bit too much.” She sent me home for a week. My house move made me realize just how much stuff I had. Paper bags, trinkets, jewelry I never wore, and clothes that I didn’t love were all possessions holding me back from what I truly wanted. I had thought I was accumulating what I needed for when I eventually got married and had a house, but actually, it was emotional baggage that I was holding on to. I dreamed of quitting my job and moving to Italy. So I got serious and hired a coach: It was now or never. My coach and I agreed I would start a meditation practice. At first, I struggled to “stop thinking,” but combined with reading books and blogs and with encouragement, accountability, and support from my coach, I persevered. It was after a moment of breakthrough—oh, I actually get how to do this!—that I began to feel pain in the back of my shoulders. It was a swirling, tension-type pain, usually showing up during the meditation. I read about transmuting the pain by fully feeling or accepting what was in my body, and I found that I was able to dissolve the pain. It felt amazing. At work, some weeks later, I experienced pain in my right wrist. It was an aching pain, and it hurt to use my mouse. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “RSI (repetitive strain injury)". I took a break from my desk and came back. My job involved document design, often under short deadline pressure, so not being able to use my right hand was going to severely limit my output. I tried again, and it was still there—a shooting pain—and it was hurting every time there was movement, even just to click the mouse. I cursed my job again. I was convinced my work had been the reason I needed to start wearing glasses. Here was another sign that it was “just too much.” My body had my attention. Not long after the shoulders and RSI pain began, a new pain in my right hip started to emerge. What had worked to dissolve the shoulder pain was meditation. So I began to accept and love the parts of myself that were causing me pain. Previously, this practice had brought up an issue with a co-worker, who could be rather disorganized but who was passionate about what he did. When I was meditating he kept popping into my head. I had been working with him more than usual, and his turning up in my meditation practice was infuriating. Then I remembered that I’d read…“what you resist persists.” I understood: I had to accept him. Once I’d learned to welcome him into my meditation and began speaking to him (in my head) with love, I found he no longer showed up. I understood that what I criticized in him was not accepting that part of me that was like him. I accepted it, and the pain began to dissolve. First, it felt stuck, then begin to move, then it disappeared. When the new pain appeared in my right hip, I was confident I could release it through meditation. After all, it had worked before. I suspected it would take longer, though: My right hip was a ball of tension and extremely stiff. I could not make the pain release easily. I wondered if it was because I sat at my desk at work at a slight angle. Now I believe I sat like that because of this inner tension. I was way out of alignment with myself—my Self. After three years of meditation, personal development work, and increasing my awareness to release the pain, I write this knowing the last is releasing. I’ve had rest and occasional massages. I became convinced both of the power of energy therapies (reiki, EFT, and the Bowen Technique) as well as awareness of my deep issues around trust and massive fear. In her book, You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay writes that our physical pain is created in the mind because of a lack of forgiveness. She suggests that pain in the hips is related to moving forward. It took me a long time to realize that if I didn’t let go of all the pain and confusion and heartbreak that I’d buried, I would keep holding myself back from flourishing, from thriving and having fun again. It took patience, tears, heart-wrenching conversations, and big steps of fear. Sometimes I just found another layer underneath. I have had no medical intervention. I didn’t want painkillers. I felt the pain had become chronic because I had not allowed myself to be ME for years, and unexpressed emotion needed to come out. Sometimes the pain was a dull ache that was barely noticeable. Sometimes it was overpowering, and all I could do was lie on my bed, exasperated. Sometimes it was a sharp pain; sometimes it was stiffness. Sometimes it was a hard knot of tension, sometimes a dragging feeling. Sometimes it was confined to my hip; sometimes it extended through the whole of the right side of my body: the teeth on the right side of my mouth, my leg, and my back. My foot. My neck. My spine. I believe that my body is a house for my soul, and when my body, mind, and soul are in alignment, life flows easily and naturally. I have uncovered (remembered?) my unlimited power, and I can create whatever I want to in my life. I often check in with my body to make a decision about something. If my mind and my body are in conflict over a decision, I’m developing the trust in my body that tells me so much more than the changing answers of my mind. One of the most important mantras I learned to tell myself during this healing process was “trust your body to do exactly what it needs to.” I want to share my story because I come across many people who have chronic pain, weight gain, and patterns of behavior that need some hope. I am certainly not anti–Western medicine. But I believe rather than numbing the pain with painkillers, allowing ourselves to “feel” our way to health—and by feel, I mean allowing ourselves to be in pain, experience it by crying, shouting, being angry, talking, and standing up for ourselves—can pave the path to wellness. I have made so many changes to my life, and it’s blown me away. I’ve felt these changes, this peeling away of layers. If you have some kind of chronic condition, don’t give up. Whatever it is, it can be explored if you desire it and you are willing. I believe you can relieve your pain, too.
