Honoring Pain

In this meditation, we'll work with Kahlil Gibran's poem Do Not Love Half Lovers to remind us of our inherent wholeness. Running from your pain and heartbreak keeps you separate from the world. Your power to create doesn’t want to be controlled and wrestled into a form of escape--it wants to heal your wounds, to reconnect you to the truth of your belonging, and to open you to beauty. It wants you to live a life that you create. Your true self is more capable than you know.

Edited by Nadia Greenspan

Transcript

In the words of Kahlil Gibran,

What makes you a stranger to them closest to you,

And they strangers to you?

The half is a mere moment of inability,

But you are able for you are not half a being.

You are a whole that exists to live a life,

Not half a life.

When we live in fear that no one can see us for who we are,

When we experience negative consequences for expressing ourselves freely,

We are only half alive.

Daily existence becomes a game of survival,

One in which we must endlessly explain and justify ourselves.

We crave to be deeply known and regarded,

But instead we feel lonely and numb.

For many of us,

There comes a time when we realize that we've been living half a life.

If,

When you expressed yourself as a child,

You were met with disapproval,

Humiliation,

Or scorn,

You withdrew.

Maybe you were met with anger,

Or contempt,

Rejection,

Or abandonment,

Or even violence and abuse.

If you weren't loved and accepted just as you were,

You may have learned to hesitate and question every move.

It wasn't safe to be you.

To be accepted,

You made yourself small.

At some point in your past,

You disconnected from the ways you naturally moved and took up space,

The ways you made a mess or a ruckus,

The ways you explored your world with a sense of play and wonder.

When you were taught to compare yourself to others,

Your inner critic was born and your freedom of play was gone.

You became less trusting of yourself and put your trust in the eyes of others,

In how they see things,

And especially in how they see you.

On this road,

It's not long before you feel lost and unfulfilled.

Staying on this road leads you to loneliness and alienation.

When you don't express yourself in fear that someone will turn their back on you,

Criticize you,

Ridicule you,

Or abandon you,

You're living half a life.

What words have you been longing to say?

What smile have you withheld?

It is possible to let go of this numbness and fear,

But that means entering the unknown.

And embracing something new means letting go of something you've been so desperately holding onto.

Relax your grip and open your hand.

Authenticity is a practice of taking responsibility for what you long to express,

And that starts with staying awake in your longing.

To be your authentic self,

You must become the author of your own story.

Rumi,

The 13th century Sufi poet,

Says that when we listen to ourselves,

We touch the divine.

Today,

Like every other day,

We wake up empty and frightened.

Don't open the door to the study and begin reading.

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

What would you do if,

When the next time you wake up empty and frightened,

You don't compulsively reach for your phone?

What if today is not to be like every other day,

And the way you reach out into the world is not as a consumer of culture,

But as a creator?

What will it take to take down that musical instrument and do the thing that you love?

Ask yourself,

What do I want to do?

Am I willing to honor my own desire to live a beautiful life?

What do I stand for?

What is it I want to see?

You may feel so deeply lost that you don't even know what you want,

Or what you love,

Or what you want to see.

Close your eyes.

Remember what you were like as a child.

Perhaps you loved drawing pictures,

Or climbing things,

Or skipping rocks,

Or building forts,

Or making funny noises.

Open your heart to the spaces where you found solace in yourself.

Call upon the child in you to help you remember what drew you deeper into the world.

What brought you joy?

How old are they?

What do they look like?

Are they wearing a favorite shirt?

Do they have holes in their socks?

Are they barefoot?

Are their nails bitten?

Are their knees skinned?

Do they hide behind a book or under the covers?

Do they find solace with a pet or outside by themselves?

Did they sneak candy when no one was looking?

See how this child was already feeling pain and loneliness and judgment and was already shutting down.

Did someone criticize or tease them when they cried?

Who hurt them?

Did they think they deserved love and praise only when they achieved something?

Did they believe that their worthiness was based on how they served or helped or how useful they were to others?

Sit next to this child.

Get down on the floor with them.

Ask them about their toys,

Their stuffed animals.

Look at the little drawing they made with a marker on the wall and got in trouble for.

How can you give this child your unconditional regard?

What would this child like to hear from you right now from the adult that is with them?

Tell them out loud or to yourself what a wonderful person they are,

How happy and grateful you are to spend time with them,

How proud of them you are,

How much you love them.

Stay here another moment and see this child with more love and with clearer eyes than you ever have before.

Thank this child for this visit.

You can return here whenever you want.

Now it's time to come back to your adult self.

Stay in this space.

Rest here.

Let yourself breathe.

In your daily life,

When do you feel most at home?

On a walk,

In the shower,

With a pet,

Preparing a meal,

In the moments before sleep?

Find a feeling of home in your body and allow yourself to relax in that spaciousness.

Allow yourself to be at ease,

Without pretense.

There's no one to perform for here.

Here,

You get to be you.

What do you see now?

What are the contents of your mind?

That's you in there.

In your imagination,

You're closer to your true and essential self than you are when you're looking at the surface features of your life.

Be willing to see whatever shows up here,

No matter how unclear or unwanted.

If you see guilt or shame or regret,

Don't fight it.

Let yourself see it.

Name what you see.

To name is to become aware of what before was amorphous and unknown.

If what you see feels loving and hopeful and inspiring,

Trust and honor that feeling.

But what you see may also be frightening.

You may see confusion or anger or sadness or even despair.

That's okay.

This is your true self getting your attention.

The part of you that's been hurt is crying out for you to bear witness.

It is possible to accept yourself and even to love yourself in your own despair.

If what you see and feel in the space of your imagination is painful,

Know that feeling it,

No matter how dark or undesirable or chaotic that feeling is,

Is an essential part of healing.

Healing begins with accepting yourself and honoring yourself exactly where you are.

Pain is a gift.

Its purpose is to draw your attention to something that isn't right,

Something that needs your love and your care.

Running from pain doesn't make it go away.

It only numbs you.

And when you numb your pain,

You numb your ability to feel anything at all.

Numbing your pain also numbs your capacity to feel joy and happiness and to experience beauty.

The awareness of pain is a gift,

A blessing with the power to bring you healing.

If you numb your pain,

See that.

The awareness of your numbness is also a gift.

Running from your pain and heartbreak keeps you separate from the world.

Your power to create doesn't want to be controlled and wrestled into a form of escape.

It wants to heal your wounds,

To reconnect you to the truth of your belonging,

And to open you to beauty.

It wants you to live a life of courage,

A life of deeper meaning,

A life that you create.

Your true self is much more capable than you know.

You are able,

For you are not a half-being.

You are a whole that exists to live a life.

Honor your pain.

Let it work on you.

It's your portal to the Divine.

Reviews

great teaching - healing the parts of my childhood that were suppressed - “Honor your pain - it’s the portal to the divine.” so nourishing 🙏

I have no words do describe how deep your words have reached, I'll be coming back to them for once was not enough to take it all in. Thank you so much 🙏

I can’t begin to say how deeply this got to me. This is absolute truth here. I’m sincerely dumbfounded by the directness and the laser beam of self-love this meditation just gave me. May it find you, too.

I have not heard anyone talk of pain beautifully essential to our growth. Thank you for enlightening 🙏🙏🙏❤️❤️❤️

Wonderful. I hope you will produce more of these tracks. I find solace through your words. 🙏🏽

Deeply resonating, thank you, I 'll listen again...and again

Powerful meditation ! Very greatful to you for your wisdom 🙏❤️

That was deep, powerful yet very gentle. Thank you!

Beautiful and wise. How to find an honor our true self.

Absolutely wonderful. Your voice and your words touch and inspire me. Thank you.

Another powerful & divinely guided reminder for us all, for none of us can escape the human and earthly condition of pain and suffering!
Thank you, Michael for sharing with us, to help us all ReMember our Soul whole and in love, through the awareness of our Pain. 💙

Spoken straight to my heart! Sometimes we forget that pain does serve a purpose. A vital one. As hard as grief and pain are, I will remember that they only make me grow and make me a better woman. Thank you!!! 🙏🏽💚