Of Pleasure & Pain

Pain or pleasure..? It seems as though we are either experiencing one or the other. What if I told you they can co-exist? What if I told you pleasure doesn’t have to be a patch we use to cover our pain, but that our pain can be the doorway through which we discover what real ‘pleasures’ in life really are?

I think often times, when we feel broken, we look outwardly for comfort, when the real answers to our deepest, most all-encompassing healing are found within….

It’s so much easier, I know, to find comfort in food, alcohol, sex, busyness, social media….add just about any extrinsic source of dopamine and validation to that list. Believe me, I know. I myself have used these time and time again to numb my pain. Even the things we believe are ‘healthy’ outlets can become toxic forms of emotional release. For me, this was exercise – a very-much-so ‘healthy’ endeavor, and one in which we should all be incorporating into our daily lives for its many positive benefits. But, just as you can overdose on vitamins, over-hydrate, brush your teeth too much…you can do just about anything to an unhealthy extreme. 

Aside from the obvious way these options provide a more easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy, much less intrinsically challenging mechanisms of facing our pain…why do we consistently resort to these outlets even when we know they are not the more prosperous course of action in dealing with our problems..?

The answer to this is multifaceted. Many individualistic variables are at play here. But, one thing I think the vast majority of us can nod our heads in agreement to is that they are learned behaviors – patterns in which our bodies have become accustom to over time. We are, after all, creatures of habit. I myself THRIVE off of routine. And, just as we habituate with daily practices of getting up and turning on the pot of coffee before work, brushing our teeth before bed, and the various others that become almost unconscious in nature, we trend towards resorting to the same comfort-seeking behaviors. Our bodies are smart little things. Our minds are ever-more intuitive. Over time, we develop a stronger physical and emotional affinity for all of these things we have continuously taught ourselves are effective ways in which to elicit temporary relief, happiness, peace and solace. 

We become like Pavlov’s dogs. The bell rings (trauma, pain and discontent ensues) – we salivate (we crave the thing that we have learned to resort to for comfort – maybe this is indeed food, maybe it’s jumping into bed with the ex, perhaps it’s that bottle of vodka we ‘hide’ so conveniently in the cupboard above the stove, or maybe it’s posting on social media in need of reassurance). Whatever that ‘thing’ or combination of things is, it is in seeking these mechanisms of transient release where we find ourselves in this vicious cycle of paralyzing our pain. What we really need, is to face our pain with purposeful intent. 

To numb ourselves means to disconnect from our emotions, when it is the very essence of our emotional being that we need to attune ourselves with in order to heal. Extrinsic sources of comfort close us off to our ability to deeply feel all that is coming up for us during the experience of pain. Our troubles are not like a light switch – you can not simply flick them ‘off’. Think of them more like a stinky garbage can (stick with me here) – sure, you can keep adding to the mess and shutting the lid as quickly as possible, maybe spritzing the air with some Febreeze or even putting a nice little Glade plug-in right next to that canister of festering matter. Eventually though, you’re gonna have to take the trash out. And, if you’ve let it build up while you’ve reassured yourself that you’d ‘get to it tomorrow’, you may find that when you do finally take it upon yourself to tend to it, it’s going to leak all over the floor. Heck, the whole bag might even break and you’ll be standing in your stockings staring at a steaming pile of sticky, half-fermented junk as your brain so-kindly reminds you that you should have taken it out days ago. That was a really long metaphoric way of saying – we all need to deal with our shit before we break. 

Now that we’ve agreed that closing ourselves off and bathing in apple cinnamon air freshener aren’t the answers, the ultimate question then becomes – how do we undo this knee-jerk response? How do we de-condition ourselves to wanting the very thing that we know provides only temporary reprieve? How do we begin to choose the things that heal us rather than those that numb us…?

The answer may come as much a surprise to you as it initially did to me. It’s not as simple as just saying ‘no’ to those things we know aren’t serving us. However, it does involve starting to say ‘YES’ to the things that do. Just as we learned to numb our pain through repetitive implementation of behaviors, we can learn to face our pain through repetitive practices. 

Something I can not stress enough during this process is to be gentle with yourself, and acknowledge each and every ‘win’ – no matter how trivial it may seem. Maybe one day instead of reaching for the family-sized box of chocolate and bottle of wine you end up binging on a bag of dried mango. You wake up post fruity sugar coma with a sore belly, but hey – no hangover. Chalk it up to a win. Maybe instead of spending two hours sweating it out on the treadmill for the 7th time that week you text a friend and go for a walk. Maybe instead of texting the ex to meet you between the sheets you snuggle up with your battery operated boyfriend. WIN, WIN, WIN. Do I sound ridiculous yet? Good. None of this is textbook. But guess what? Those little choices over time start to add up. Soon you start to discover that writing in your journal brings you a heck of a lot more peace than scrolling through Instagram. Soon you begin to find those daily walks leave you feeling infinitely more refreshed and clear-minded than the total burn-out you felt from countless HIIT sessions. Soon you begin to feel your body thank you for saying no to the sugar, the booze, and everything that once left you feeling lackluster. Soon you being to FEEL, and you might just start to discover the beauty that lies in sitting with your emotions. You might just begin to discover the lessons to be learned in your pain. 

Little by little, you open your own eyes to the things that reconnect you with you – the things that remind you that you don’t have to look for a safe place to hide from your troubles – you ARE a safe place, and it is in facing your pain that you become most liberated to be the most authentic, exuberant version of yourself. 

Pain is scary. Emotions are scary. Feeling them deeply in all of their entirety can be petrifying. But the liberation of self that results from facing these deep parts of our souls provides a freedom that is far more gratifying than the temporary dissolution of discomfort experienced in alternate forms of pain-numbing indulgence. 

You can’t indulge your way to inner peace. 
You won’t discover the path to self-actualization through intoxication.
You can’t hump your way to happiness.

Nor can you sweat your problems away.

Food. Sex. Exercise. These all hold the potential to be utilized in ways that accentuate the experience of life. They can all greatly contribute to your health, happiness and healing. There’s even something to be said for the benefits of wine in moderation. But, the thing is, complete emotional healing will never be achieved through physical means. 

Soul-work extends far beyond the bounds of the somatic being. To connect to your heart, to free your soul to discover inner peace and to learn to thrive requires that you tune into the parts of you that hurt sometimes – the parts of you that remind you that you are indeed a living, breathing, walking, talking, FEELING soul in a human body.  

May I remind you that the part of you that feels pain is also the part of you that feels love, joy and peace. May I remind you that the emotions we deem to be ‘negative’ are required for us to have some contextual comparison for which we are able to label those in opposition to all those we denote as ‘positive’. What would elation feel like if we did not know sorrow? What would love mean to us if we had never known loss or heartache? Would we appreciate our triumphs the same if it were not for tribulation? Would we..? 

I hope today you take one small step towards healing.

I hope today you say yes towards purposeful mitigation of pain and no to the numbing of self.
I hope today you allow yourself to feel the emotions your heart is begging for you to embrace.
I hope today you know that you are resilient, you are worthy, you are authentic, you are enough. And you deserve to live a life not void of pain, but void of all that robs you of your experience of what it is to be human. You are a deeply feeling soul, and I hope you see just how truly beautiful that is to be. 

Own your pain. Take responsibility for your healing. Discover the life that awaits for you when you unlock the depths of your big, beautiful, deeply feeling soul. 

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As always, thank you for joining me today

A reminder to take a deep breath and to affirm:

I am Resilient. I am Authentic. I am Worthy. I am Enough

Much love, 
From my Big Little Soul to yours
❤