HOLDING SPACE FOR PAIN
When my mother was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease over 20 years ago, my younger self did not understand the impact this illness would have on her body. You see, my mother had always been suffering from one illness after another for as long as I could remember. In childhood, I recall her going to countless doctors all giving her various prescriptions for their diagnosis. One recommended that she drink a diet of 7-Up. How a sugary liquid of corn syrup was supposed to cure her, I do not know. She would come home weeping at other times after being told she was making everything up in her head. In my teenage years, after surviving breast cancer and radiation treatment, Parkinson’s disease was the next diagnosis.
The healing my mother needed was not found at the doctor’s office. The healing my mother needed was around her heart. I have two desires for my mother. I want her to be well and I want her to be happy. As a child, I would tell her I loved her ad nauseam.
My mother is the reason I found my life purpose: to be a vessel of healing, to teach others how to heal the heart and live their most content, confident life.
My reason for writing and recording these meditations are, in part, for her.
Mom, I love you.
BODY OF HEALING
The universe sent me on a path to first find my own healing. Although always the student, I turn now to become the teacher. This is my purpose.
Our body wants homeostasis and is constantly working for us to keep us alive and well. However, when we are healing, it can feel as though the body will never get better, you will be forever scarred and never whole again. When faced with illness and injury myself, I found it necessary to tell myself repeatedly that my body was repairing itself and knew how to heal. I was asking myself to trust that which had betrayed me. To do this, I had to forgive the body.
Sitting with our own pain and softening to the sensations arising is a teacher. It educates us on how to be with the unpleasant. What do we do when the unpleasant arises and we cannot run from it? There is nothing to do but sit with it, soften to it, and listen. This is giving space to our pain and trusting the process.
HOLDING SPACE FOR HEALING
By practicing sitting with our own feelings of discomfort -you can call it pain, anxiety, depression, our any amount of intense sensation - we can then give space to the suffering of others. If we are running from our own pain and self-medicating in one way or another, we will do the same when it comes to facing the pains of a loved one. I ran from my own pain and I ran from my mother’s pain for a long time. When I would see her suffer, I would suffer. Once I realized that my suffering was self-inflicted, she was the one in pain not I, I became aware that I was taking on her pain. I did not need to take her pain on to be there for her. What demonstrates the most care for a loved one who is suffering is to hold space for their experience. In doing this, the tightness around pain dissolves and healing can enter.
We can hold space for another in the same way we hold space for ourselves. By sitting with and being present. Nothing to do. No casseroles to make, no gifts to give, no words, just be. Simply being with someone who is in pain is to allow them to heal. Instead of a physical gift, it gives the gift of loving kindness. There is no pity or feeling sorry for, there is true compassion, a love that comes from the source of Love. The greatest gift of all.
MEDITATION PRACTICE
Today’s post is the fourth and final post on pain. The guided meditation is helpful when facing illness or injury and can also be used when emotional pains surface. It opens the body/mind to forgiveness, trust and healing. This meditation can also be used to direct healing to a loved one. Keep their image in your mind as you listen, soften and breathe.
Practice with loving kindness towards yourself. Be with what is and you will be shown the way.
To your greatness.