Webster's New World Dictionary and Thesaurus Second Edition, defines the word 'therapeutic' (adj.) as follows: "[from the Greek word therapeuein, to nurse] serving to cure or heal or to preserve health." And that's exactly what writing has been doing for me. Healing my health (and sanity!) :-) I began writing a book several months ago, but with the rigourous day-to-day activities (such as life-as well as recent events), I haven't kept it up. I intend to do so now. Soon I'll be a published author. And to think you'll be able to say, "I used to read his blog when he was a nobody." LOL I owe my renewed focus to 'pain'.
What is pain? Pain is felt every day all over the world. Somewhere right now, someone you know and someone you will never know is in pain. I imagine there are very few people (if any) who have not felt pain at one time or another. As most of us know pain can be physical or mental suffering caused by injury, disease, grief, anxiety, etc. People react to pain by trying to do something about it. Physical pain often requires some sort of physical treatment. A wound, for example, has to be cleaned and bandaged. Emotional pain, however can present more of a problem. Many people treat emotional pain by hiding it; that is, they do something self-gratifying-such as drink alcohol, use drugs, have meaningless sex, gamble, watch TV or movies, overeat, and so on-that numbs the pain but does nothing to heal it. Many people also use anger and revenge to respond to hurt.
Anger, in its technical sense, is a desire to harm the person or thing that hurt you; revenge is an act of carrying out that harm in some way.
Revenge can be enacted passively through obstruction and sabotage, or it can be enacted actively through violence. But, just as with hiding the hurt, anger and revenge do not heal the hurt either. That's because all hurt, at its core, is simply a reminder of your essential human vulnerability and helplessness. Even if you kill the person who hurts you, you still remain vulnerable to another attack from someone else. With all anger and revenge, then, you might temporarily feel powerful, but the feeling is just an illusion. No matter what you do, you remain vulnerable to attack from anyone.
When you're in pain and move towards the hurt, it is working through your problems in an attempt to solve them. It is reflecting on your problems yourself in an attempt to arrive at a solution. It is talking over your problems with another person or people and obtaining outside support, and it is letting go of your fears and pride and reaching out to the eternal, the spiritual or God (for those who believe in God).
Sometimes, pain feels better when reaching out to someone else. It is also talking about your problems with a friend or someone else that you trust. It is sharing your pain and there by reducing it, modifying it and letting it go.
What also makes you feel better is moving towards God by praying that some how and in some way things will get better. It is finding that faith and hope from deep within that you will be ok, because you are worthy as a person and deserve to be loved and to have a good life. Being happy is not the absence of emotional pain in your life, it is learning to grow from it. Because I have hurt deeply in my life, I truly appreciate my life when it is really good.
I read somewhere that it's unhealthy to block out (not deal with) your emotional pain. There are people who can mentally bury things and NOT have it bother them. These people are often called psychopaths. There was this teenage boy I saw on television, who brutally axe murdered both his parents. Fairly early on, he was asked how he could live with himself - knowing what he had done. With a smile on his face he said: “Simple, I just choose not to think about it.” This is how his emotional pain manifested. Not that I could ever do that (SHUT UP! - LOL) . But it is unhealthy and I choose to turn my pain into power.
I see pain in a different light now. I don't fear emotional pain as I once did. I now see that it has all the potential to be a springboard for productiveness and accomplishments. It's okay to feel and experience pain, but it's how we handle it that will make or break us.
To highlight reaching out to friends and outside support, this morning I heard from another very good friend of mine. He read and commented on the blog. We don't speak that often, but when he called after reading, we chatted for over an hour. Knowing that he cares enough to read and then call to see how I was doing, really made my day. I'm still a little down, but I know I have a great (if not the best) support team anyone could ask for!
No comments:
Post a Comment