Facing Pain

It was early Sunday Morning.  Ok, it wasn’t really that early if I am to be honest.  The barrage of meetings, spin and the undying sense that I would “never” (there is that word again) catch up at work loomed like a thick weighted blanket keeping me in bed later than usual.  The morning glow of sunlight on the mountain was beckoning me to notice, but I didn’t pay attention. I was in my head.

I walked downstairs in a daze, and began my most guarded ritual:  coffee.  I boiled the water, plunged.  It didn’t go down.  I NEEDED coffee, so plunged with more vigor just  as the boiling liquid burst from the press, scalding  my face: nose, mouth, eyes, and chest, sending coffee lumped with molten exfoliating grounds all over my kitchen and self.

I ran to the sink washing my face, but the cool water felt warm on my skin.  I went to my freezer for ice, only to find that I had left it a little open the night before, and the contents were melted and limp.

My inner critic raged:  “Stupid girl, you are so wasteful and absentminded!  What have you done moving to the woods, so far from help?  You are going to die out here alone with a burned face.”

I pictured what lay under the Phantom of The Opera’s mask and the catastrophe burned into my thoughts like the grounds burning into my scalp.

My phone rang.  It was my friend Tina.  I told her I had an accident and could’t talk.

I rinsed and rinsed.  It still hurt; a slow, burning, radiating hurt.  It felt like it would never end.

I remember a yoga sutra, 2.16.  

heyam = avoided, prevented

duhkham = pain, suffering, sorrow

anagatam = which has not yet come

“avoidable is the suffering which has not yet come.”

Patanjali, Yoga Sutras, 2.16

I have trained for this!  In yoga, we do difficult things on our mat to prepare us for the inevitable suffering that is going to come our way in life.  This was just a dramatic example of suffering: the intensity was high, but I know it will pass.  Impermanence is one thing we can rely on.

So, I accepted it.  Pain is going to be here today.

I sat in it.  That was hard.

I prayed for relief.

The old me might have tried to run away: open a bottle, take a pill, get a quick exit. I didn’t.

My phone rang a second time.  It was my friend Theresa.  

Theresa is one of those very important friends that is just one step ahead of me on a particular journey.  Those friends give you proof and affirmation that a better life is possible.  Then you get to the tough parts, you remember their tough parts and forge on.  Can you think of a Teresa in your life?

She talked with passion, authenticity and vulnerability.  She shared her dreams and her fears as I paced my floor.  I focused on her, asked questions. I was reminded of another principal in recovery.  Being of service of another takes us out of the “I, Me, My” mind.  Listening to Theresa eased my pain.

These lessons can help us with craving, aversion or longing to escape any feeling: loneliness, grief, fear.  Looking back at those catastrophic thoughts, I realize they were not true.  I was not alone.  I had not one but two friends think of me that morning.  And as the women showed up to practice yoga that night, one by one, each hugging me and smiling as they walked into my home, I remembered that I am exactly where I am supposed to be.