The Amazingly Great Feeling Of Relief

One of the best feelings is the relief from pain. It can help to know this while we are experiencing pain. "At some point, this pain will be over and I will feel better." This recording encourages anticipating and noticing and enjoying the relief.

Transcript

Hi,

It's Brooks,

And thank you for joining me.

It's nice to be here with you.

Today,

I wanted to talk about,

I made up this title,

It's called The Amazingly Great Feeling of Relief.

And I love that title because it's true,

I mean,

That's my experience.

And I love it because,

Like usually,

Pain is something that is really bothersome.

It sucks when there's pain,

Whether it's physical pain or emotional pain or spiritual pain.

It hurts,

And we feel frustrated,

We feel like there's a lot of emotions going on inside of us,

A lot of confusion.

Those aren't good feelings.

But what's a really good feeling is when the pain goes away.

Because it always does,

At some point,

The pain is gone,

Or it fades away,

And then there's no pain.

Because nothing stays the same.

And sometimes when we're in the midst of pain,

It can feel like it's gonna last forever,

Like it's never gonna go away.

But I don't know about you,

But if I look back on my life,

And the times where I've experienced pain,

There's pain,

And there's not pain,

Pain,

There's not pain,

Pain,

There's not pain,

No matter how small or no matter how big,

Eventually the pain goes away.

And that helps me when I'm experiencing pain,

Because I know it's temporary,

And I get excited about the feeling of how is it gonna feel when the pain goes away?

Because I know there's gonna be this amazingly great feeling of relief.

I mean,

You've had like a cold,

We've all had colds,

Right?

You know how crappy it feels when you have a cold,

And it feels like this cold's gonna last forever,

And nothing seems good,

Right?

Just,

Things are just,

They suck at that point.

But then at another point,

And the cold's gone,

My feeling is always,

Oh my God,

It feels so good to not have a cold.

I feel better than I've ever felt,

That's how I feel.

Like,

This is so exciting.

I'm so happy at that point,

Because of the relief.

And so,

I think that can help whenever we experience problems to know that there's gonna be relief coming.

It's a sign,

Pain is a sign that there's gonna be relief when the pain goes away.

And I really think that relief is one of the best feelings in the world.

I consistently see that over and over again.

The other day we had problems with our water pump here.

We have a well,

And we didn't have water for a day,

And it was very uncomfortable.

Like,

We couldn't take a shower,

Couldn't use any water for cooking,

Couldn't wash our hands.

It was a problem,

We couldn't flush the toilets.

It sucked,

It was bad.

But we called the plumbers,

And we knew that they would be coming over.

And I knew at some point that this would be fixed,

And it was gonna feel really nice.

And it did,

We got the pump fixed,

The water came back,

And I was so happy to have that water.

I took a shower,

I got a glass of water,

I drank it down,

I was like,

This is the best water ever.

Because of the relief,

You know?

The relief,

It consistently is a good thing.

If you notice it.

I think the only reason I'm doing this talk is to help maybe illuminate that for you,

So that when you are feeling in a painful situation that sucks,

To have that anticipation,

You know,

That excitement,

Like,

This is gonna be over,

And it's gonna feel great.

Again,

I think it's good to mention that,

Because often there's that feeling this is gonna last forever,

This pain,

This difficult situation,

This uncomfortable sensation,

Whatever it is.

But again,

We look back at our lives and we see pain throughout our lives and relief following it.

And my best situation of relief so far in my life is about seven,

Almost seven years ago,

I got a double lung transplant.

And before that,

I was really sick for two years.

It was so hard to breathe.

It was extremely uncomfortable.

I mean,

Talk about a painful situation.

It's like,

Just sitting up in bed was,

I would be like,

Just huffing and puffing like I ran a marathon.

And I would cough a lot,

And cough for like sometimes 15 minutes straight,

And just thinking this is the most painful thing I'd ever been through.

And what helped me was,

I thought,

Okay,

If I lived through this,

If I survived this,

If I'm able to breathe well again,

I'm getting emotional talking about it.

It was such an intense time.

But I thought if I could breathe again,

I just can't imagine how good that's gonna feel.

Like it's gonna be the best possible ever feeling in the world.

So I ended up getting this double lung transplant.

And there was like a week or so where I was just out of it.

And I just was hallucinating,

Don't remember anything.

And then I was conscious and I could breathe.

And I didn't have to use a nasal cannula or have to have any oxygen.

I breathed on my own.

And it was the greatest feeling.

It was like I won 17 lotteries.

It was better than that.

Just that pure being able to breathe without any difficulty was one of the greatest experiences in my life.

Because it was relief.

The pain,

The difficulty,

The extreme un-comfortableness was gone and it was replaced with relief.

And I think what happens for all of us is,

When something's really painful,

We get overwhelmed by it.

It takes up our awareness.

That's all we're experiencing is the frustration,

The pain,

The difficulty.

It takes up all our mind,

All our heart.

And so our container's filled with that and we're overwhelmed.

And what happens for all of us is when the problem is over or when it greatly diminishes,

It's replaced by space,

Pure space.

And that in itself is the relief.

And it's worth noticing.

You know,

If you're in pain,

If there's something really difficult for you going on right now,

I encourage you to think about how good it's gonna feel when that situation's gone.

Because that can give you some excitement,

Some giddiness,

Some anticipation.

And when that pain does end,

The best you can,

To try to notice that,

To notice that space,

To notice the relief,

To notice that amazingly great feeling of relief.

And I think you'll love it.

I encourage you to do this.

It's like,

It's a real gift to give yourself.

And I think that's,

Again,

The great thing about pain.

This is gonna be amazing when it's over.

I'm gonna be given the gift of relief.

That's what pain is basically telling you.

You're gonna feel great when this pain is gone.

So that's an interesting way to look at pain.

But it works for me.

Definitely works for me.

So thanks for listening.

I appreciate you.

And I can feel your presence of listening even though I'm recording this right now.

So it's really nice.

And thank you very much.

And I hope this helps.

I hope this makes a difference.

And take care,

Bye.

Reviews

Thank you so much- that is really effective 🙏

Very much appreciated thank you 🙏

A good reminder that pain is temporary

endure for relief
I like it🌺

Yes. This too shall pass. Thank you Brooks.

Thanks Brooks, it is helpful and it does make a difference! I particularly like the idea of ‘the space’ after the pain is gone. For me, relief and gratitude intermingle.

This is exactly how I cope with difficult situations in my life! I think of it as being in the dentist's. Yes, it hurts now but very soon the pain will be gone. Thank you for the reminder!

I wish you continued health and wonder in your life.
Glad I found you this morning.

It was nice to be reminded of the feeling of relief.
Because sometimes your mind is so wind up in trouble, or worry. And when you are in the middle of that it is not possible to think pure positive thoughts, but shifting your focus to the feeling of relief is possible. I had forgotten about that. so thank you for reminding me of that again.
Relief is a step forward on the emotional scale that is within our reach when we feel like crap. So yes, I will focus more on the feeling of relieve because it feels awesome .