Learning to ride waves of pain is a skill. 🌊 Skills take practice.
Learning to feel and sit with pain is a skill I was not born with, and certainly never acquired along the way.
That’s why I dove into addiction–I could never sit in pain.
I ran from any sign of it. I drank it, smoked it, bought it, spent it, ate it, worked it, entrepreneured it… you get the picture.
OR… I turned the pain onto myself.
I hurt myself. I dug myself into painful holes, ran myself into the ground.
“If I turn this pain on me, then I can predict it. I can CONTROL it.”
I never learned how to sit in pain.
I never learned how to express the pain in a way that was not destruction.
I never learned how to trust the pain would not continue.
Now, at 40, I am learning.
And guess what?
It. Hurts.
That pain I wanted to avoid with addiction? With checking out? With diversions? Oh, it’s right there where I left it.
Some types of pain may always be there.
A presence.
A ghost.
But the intensity, the power, the darkness of it will not always be this (or that) bad. IF we are willing to work on our skills, our surfing. It does change. It does get better.
Notice today, if you are in pain, that intensity comes in waves. Crippling, debilitating, haunting waves maybe… but waves, nonetheless.
Waves.
We can ride waves.
We can learn to surf.
We won’t be right here forever.
The waves will come.
But we can begin to see them. Brace for them, ride them, and learn skillfully how to move forward amongst them.
Riding the wave is all I keep reminding myself.
Don’t stand on the shore (addiction).
Get in the water (life) and learn to surf.
“This will pass.”
“Breathe your way through this.”
“It will be okay. Say a prayer.”
“Write down the pain.”
“Walk walk walk walk – walk away.”
“You are stronger than you think.”
“You are loved.”
“Help me God.”
“I have breath. I have life.”
The waves will come.
But we can swim.
We can.
In the space between–we can even breathe.
I’m with you.
Let’s surf.
#YearOfNoNonsense
#RidetheWaves