Meeting The Pain You've Hidden

This is a meditation for those carrying pain they’ve been too afraid to feel. Through reflective guidance and gentle inquiry, it invites you to explore the emotions you’ve hidden, not to overwhelm you, but to help you meet them with compassion. This is a safe space for raw honesty, deep feeling, and the quiet beginning of healing.

You won’t be asked to fix anything, only to finally allow what’s true.

Transcript

This is a meditation for the moments when you're tired of pretending,

For the days when your insides ache with things left unspoken,

For the nights when your smile feels like a costume and all you want is to sit down and stop holding it together.

If that's where you are,

You're safe here,

You don't need to be anything else,

Let yourself fly back or sit in stillness,

Let the breath settle in your chest without force,

There's nothing to control here,

Nothing to suppress.

This is not a meditation to feel better,

It's a meditation to feel what's real,

To trust that you won't break.

Take a breath,

A real one,

Not a pretty one,

Not a performative one,

Just one that feels true in this moment.

One of the most untangling things I ever did was admit to myself that I was unwell,

That I felt broken even though I wasn't,

It was the pretending that made me feel broken,

It was hiding the parts of me I could no longer suppress,

I was cracking and breaking and it became too much to hide,

Too much to hold in.

So,

After many years of running from the pain,

Face to face,

And there I didn't sink to the bottom of the ocean,

I finally found the shore,

And I want to ask you gently,

Not as a task,

But as a reflection,

Because sometimes we hide those parts of ourselves for so long,

We forget we're even carrying them.

Are you hiding parts of you that still hurt?

Do you fear facing those parts,

The fear of an unfixable breakage?

There is a quiet ancient art in Japan called Kintsugi,

The practice of repairing broken pottery,

Not by hiding the cracks,

But by filling them with gold.

The breaks are not erased,

But honored,

A luminous seam that says this happened,

And still beauty remains.

Each fracture is traced in shimmering light,

Not to mask what was broken,

But to celebrate it,

To show that the break itself has become part of the story,

Part of the strength.

The object once shattered is now more precious than before,

Not in spite of its cracks,

But because of them.

And just like that golden threaded bowl,

You too are a masterpiece of mended places.

Every part of you that has ever felt broken,

Every scar,

Every sorrow,

Every quiet ache you carry,

Is not something to be hidden,

It is something to be held,

To be touched with tenderness,

To be filled gently with light.

You are not ruined by what you've been through,

You are revealed by it,

You are gold filled.

What if you stopped hiding the pain at a distance and simply let it rise,

Slowly,

Bravely,

Not to drown you,

But to meet you?

Not to push you to smash,

But to guide you closer to the golden seams already forming inside.

What if the thing you fear,

The memory,

The grief,

The ache you've tucked so tightly inside wasn't your enemy,

But your messenger?

What if the pain you hide isn't trying to destroy you,

But release you?

We live in a world that celebrates composure,

That applauds resilience,

Strength and moving on.

But rarely do we hear someone say,

I'm still hurting and that's okay,

I don't know how to fix it and that's not a flaw.

So we adapt,

We mask,

We hide and pretend,

We smile in supermarkets,

We say we're fine.

And all the while,

A part of us stays quietly shattered,

Wondering if anyone can see the fragmented pieces of us.

Does no one else feel the same?

Am I alone in how I feel?

Will I be accepted if I am not well?

But hiding your pain doesn't make it disappear,

It just buries it deeper,

Where it still breathes,

Still throbs,

Still shapes the way you walk through your world.

So let me ask you this now,

If you never speak about what hurts,

Does it stop hurting?

If you say you've moved on,

Does that mean you truly have?

If you dress the part,

Laugh at jokes,

Function through the day,

Does that mean you're healed?

Does it mean you're no longer hurting?

Or are you still carrying it,

But silently,

Bravely and maybe a little too alone?

What is it?

Ask yourself now,

What is it?

You don't have to answer out loud,

Just feel the question in your body,

Let your heart respond if it wants to.

Allow tears in your eyes if they need to arrive,

Let the truth crack through your chest like sunlight through a darkened room.

Imagine for a moment you turn to face your pain,

Not with fear,

But with curiosity.

You sit beside it as you would a younger version of yourself.

The hidden pain,

Confused,

Hurting,

Never addressed,

Always hidden and simply needing someone to say,

I won't rush you,

I see you.

That's all pain ever really needs,

To be witnessed,

Not judged,

Just acknowledged.

We can't always fix things,

We can't change the past,

But hiding it doesn't make it go away,

It makes it something it doesn't need to be.

Because unspoken pain starts to believe it's unworthy of being felt,

Pain starts to believe it must remain hidden.

But the truth is the pain you hold within you is also scared,

And once pain is seen,

It begins to soften,

It becomes less sharp,

Less lonely.

It begins to move like water that's been stuck too long behind a dam.

So right here,

In this still moment,

I invite you to bring to mind the hurt you've hidden.

And it doesn't have to be all of it all at once,

It could just be one thing,

One part,

An ache you've hidden,

An ache you've been too tired or too scared to name.

Something you buried because the world told you that it was time to move on,

Their expectations were never yours to carry.

Don't be afraid of your pain,

Gently face it,

Hold it,

Feel it,

Let it rise.

It might feel tight in your chest or heavy in your tummy,

It might bring up tears or nothing at all.

There is no right way to grieve,

No correct shape for sadness,

There is only your truth and your willingness to meet it.

Gently remind yourself that you are not broken,

Even when you feel you are,

You have been hurting.

When you meet the pain,

You give yourself permission to heal,

Not by pretending,

Not by suppressing,

But by finally allowing what is always needed to be felt.

Pain does not define you,

But allowing its space can refine you,

Soften you,

Deepen you,

Bring you to yourself.

This is your kintsugi,

Not a repair that hides what happened,

But a golden invitation to see your life through the lens of wholeness and honor.

You are the artist of your own becoming,

And every crack holds light.

Take another breath now,

A little fuller this time,

Not because you're fixed,

But because you've made room for the truth.

Whisper to yourself,

I'm not afraid to feel anymore,

This is part of my healing,

And when you're ready to return to your day,

Let this not be a closing,

But an opening.

A quiet agreement between you and your heart,

That from this day forward,

You will listen when something hurts.

You will pause before you mask,

You will allow what is real,

Even when it's hard,

Because you know now that you can hold it,

And you are not alone.

Thank you for being here,

Thank you for being brave,

You're healing,

Even now,

Especially now.

Reviews

🙏

Ironically, and massively appropriately, I listened to this on what would have been Dad's birthday. And I really did need to hear this. Thank you.

I’ve followed you on here Charlotte from when you first started, I think I must have been one of the first people to follow you. Each meditation just gets better and better and deeper and deeper. I love it when you say you’ve been there too, it helps me feel more connected and like you know how it feels. Your not just writing from qualifications but from your own pain.
I’ve never considered facing my pain and the things I’ve experienced which had left me in a bad way many years ago, but this meditation really helped me feel that it might not be as scary as I’d imagined, in fact it’s not.
I will be returning to this meditation over and over again. Thank you as always for seeing us. I am also very aware that you don’t seem to put any plus meditations on anymore, instead you just seem to upload free ones. That means a lot to me and also I’m pretty sure many others.

You are a gift to all. Thank you for sharing your pain that we all might heal.