Shadow limb

There is a misconception, I think, that all pain is bad and to be avoided at all costs. While I am not a masochist (on most days), I try to be aware of what emotional issues cause that dull thud to reverberate through my body. What causes me to want to get in my car and drive as far as I can, and then get out and walk further?

I have read that amputees can feel their “shadow limbs”. I believe that we have the ability to feel “emotional shadow pain.” Until we open and cleanse old wounds, the shadow pain returns and recalls the source of the original wound. In doing so, the pain revives and begins to throb again.

Pain is not bad. Children are born through a great deal of pain on the parts of their mothers. It is pain for a purpose, an end, or a beginning.

Yesterday I wrote about truth. Today I write about pain. We spend so much time trying to shelter ourselves and others from pain that we forget that there is a rationale for this emotion.

“I don’t want to be cruel”, “I don’t want to cause you any more pain” are phrases that are often used. Those sentiments are off base, however. No one can make you feel anything that you aren’t feeling. Another human being is not responsible for my emotions, nor can they cause me to feel or not feel anything. To take ownership of your own pain is something that many people are reluctant to do, or unaware that they can control.

But I do. I claim my pain as my own. This is my own doing – no one else’s. I asked for the truth and I got it. The residual pain of the truth is cathartic, in its own way. It allows me to scrape away old scare tissue and reveal the pink skin of healthy emotions underneath. It allows me to cry and rid myself of old toxins – things that have been stored for years, from other times. Now I will smooth ointment over the wound and let it heal properly, with no shadows underneath.

As I gave thanks for truth, I give thanks for pain. Not because I enjoy it, but because I know that my growth depends on my ability to manage this and learn the important lessons it has to teach me.