The Benevolent Teacher of Pain

For five days the pain had been fierce and unrelenting. Besides a fierce ache in my tailbone, it felt like somebody had put a shock collar on it and I never knew when the next shock would come. I called the doctor’s office, and they suggested a couple of things that didn’t work. The next day I went to see the doctor, and what he suggested also didn’t work. That night one of the shocks was so intense that I peed on myself.

Now, that was a week and a half after spine surgery so, of course, there would be pain, but it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced before. But in my world, pain is a fierce and benevolent teacher. It shows us clearly how we are caught most of the time in a mind whose predominate strategy is avoidance.

Our minds are liking and disliking machines. All day long they try to get to what they like and get away from what they don’t like. Yes, there are moments where you get what you want, and the mind is so happy! But, of course, then life changes and you go back to seeking whatever you would imagine would bring you peace, not seeing that even if you do get it, it doesn’t last.

There’s nothing wrong with this, for this is just how minds operate. But it is very helpful to acknowledge and to investigate this. A little bit of looking will help you to see that being identified with the constant seeking in your mind keeps you caught in struggling with life, rather than being able to be vibrantly open to it – no matter what life brings.

‘No way out’ is one of the predominate states of mind that I got caught into when I was growing up. In this experience of the shock collar on my tailbone, after reaching out for help and no help coming my way, that’s the state of mind I woke up into in the middle of the night. And for a few moments, I fell into it, hook, line and sinker. So painful! But very quickly I saw what was going on… I was simply caught in my mind’s stories about what was going on rather than being present for it.

In other words, I was, at that moment, identified with the tormented victim in my mind who just desperately wanted to be anywhere but here. This resistance completely cut me off from the ability to be present for myself when my mind, my body and my heart were all in such pain.

What do we do when we are in pain? Usually, we fall into it or we try to get away from it, often with our compulsions. But there is a third way, and that is the way of the heart. My experience turned from tightly held resistance into open spaciousness when I could simply see how scared my mind was. I began to relate to it as if it were my only child. I told my mind I could see how afraid it was and that I was here with it now. With just that little bit of acknowledgment it began to soften a bit and the tightly locked doors around my heart began to open.

The warmth in my chest began to expand to include not only my scared mind but my very hurting body. The wonderful thing about the heart is that it has room for everything. It doesn’t like or dislike as our minds do. Its essence is spacious acceptance of what is. And in this nectar of acceptance I found spaciousness even around the intense pain in my tailbone. As I softened around the physical pain, struggle itself faded away and I opened into the alive field of being that is our essence, the field of ease and peace that is always with us.

I then fell into a blissful sleep. And, of course, when I woke up the next morning, some resistance was there again. But every moment we deepen this pathway from our resistant mind to our open and spacious heart, it clears the brambles of our mind so that more and more we can be available to life rather than caught in the world of struggle.

If this calls to you, there are three things you can begin to explore:

1. Know there is something that talks in your head all day long that has been conditioned into you, but it is not you. Identifying with it keeps you cut off from the deep healing that comes from opening to life as it is.
2. To begin to unhook from its constant commentary about life, if your mind is saying something like, “I am so afraid!” say instead, “My mind is so afraid,” or “There’s something inside of me that is afraid right now.” This allows you to begin to relate to what your mind is talking about rather than being caught in its world.
3. Your heart is your home. And you’ve been on a very long journey away from your heart, into the maze of your mind. When you hear this truth, your mind will probably try to figure out how to come home. But your mind can’t do this. Instead, ask life to show you the way back to your heart. Just put the question out there, and don’t look for an answer. With this question you are signaling life that you are ready to be guided back home.

Am I continually in touch with my heart? No. I, like most people, was deeply conditioned into believing I was my liking and disliking mind. But more and more the tightness and density of my mind reminds me to come home to the spaciousness and inclusion of my heart.

And this isn’t just happening inside of me. More and more of us are beginning to realize that our heart is our home. Yes, most of us, most of the time will still be identified with our minds. But know that whenever you recognize you’re just caught in your mind, and for a moment or two you ask life to show you the path back to your heart, those moments matter.