Pain

“Acceptance doesn’t mean resignation; it means understanding that something is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.” —Michael J. Fox

Today I posted a video about my realization that I really do have a decent amount of pain that I deal with. It’s amazing to me that you can live with something daily, for years even, and still have no better grasp of it than when it was “before” (or if there was no before, than perhaps a time where it was “less than.”)

I am learning to accept that I will not only be in pain for the remainder of my life, but I might even experience a greater level of it at some point; rather sooner than later. As Michael J. Fox said, “…it is what it is and that there’s got to be a way through it.”

What does that look like? “A way through it” if it’s going to have a permanent residence in my body?

‘THROUGH’ by definition means “moving in one side of and out the other side”…that is not the experience of pain in a chronically ill person. In Fox’s quote, I take that to mean, for myself, that it means to live within it, the pain, for the remainder of your life…

There’s got to be a way through navigating pain for all my life…

As a Christian, one way for me, the main way, is going to be through Christ’s help. Leaning into the suffering as a way to mold me and to better who I am (it already has and in a bizarre way, I have learned to enjoy the benefits of suffering, not to be confused with enjoying the suffering- ha!). I want to go more in depth on this topic later, not today.

Medicine is obviously one way to cope with it, to give oneself a break from it (or a break from the intensity of it as even narcotics do not take away 100% of the pain.) The other usual answers, meditation, movement, less stress, yada yada. (Wait, I forgot yoga and essential oils…#darkhumor). I want to continue this discussion about pain, more specifically, expand on various ways to navigate, cope, move through it in a future post. Stay tuned.

I wonder, in my ramblings here tonight, if “navigating” our existence with pain verses moving through it is a more appropriate term. A thought for another time.

If you experience chronic pain, know that my heart goes out to you and yours. I am always here to talk. Please leave a comment about your current ‘navigation’ through your existence with pain and if you have figured out a good way ‘through’ it.

Take care, Lovelies

❤