Thank You for Waking Me Up
Has your pain ever spoken to you? What did you hear?
What if your pain is your friend, an ally?
When I was training as a spiritual care provider, this story was told to me by my educator...
A traveler takes a rest against a tree and falls into a deep sleep. While he slept, a serpent watched him from the limbs above, slowly slithered its way down to the traveler, and bit the traveler’s neck. Jolted awake by the pain from the bite, the traveler looked at the serpent and said, “Thank you for waking me up.”
At the time, I was experiencing deep sadness and sorrow, only I did not realize it. As a provider of care and support to hurting patients and families in a hospital, I worked to minimize my own pain. I suppose I had a belief that I could not be the one in pain, because everyone in the hospital was the one truly hurting.
Not being able to recognize my pain, to give name to what I was experiencing presented other challenges and painful messages in my thoughts:
“No one wants to be around you.”
“You only bring others down.”
“You actually hurt society by existing.”
Those messages reinforced my pain; they were masters at keeping me stuck.
Stuck and asleep. Unable to see my own pain and unable to acknowledge that I was in pain. I fell asleep. I was afraid to admit that part of me was stuck, that I could not shake off the bite or the venom that was paralyzing. Instead, I worked even harder to keep it a secret, wearing whatever I could to keep the wound under guise. Though, the masking was not very convincing to those close to me.
My educator shared this story with me, and even before that, he was pointing me toward the message, “What is my pain wanting to teach me?” Eventually, something clicked, and I was able to see that my pain was not my enemy, rather, it was an ally. I acknowledged the hurt, welcomed it even, told it, “Thank you, because you wake me up.”
The pain became a pathway, a direction, my guide into what was asking for tending to for nurturing and healing. Acknowledging it as a partner that is my ally in grieving what needs to be grieved, in processing what needs to be processed, in naming what needs to be named, in sharing what needs to be shared, in releasing what needs to be released, in receiving what needs to be received.
. . .
I wonder if you’ve considered your pain an ally? Friend? Or a guide? I wonder what might change if you sat down to have a cup of coffee with your sorrow, grief, or that feeling that you just cannot shake?
It still takes time, sometimes longer and sometimes shorter, but I still work to welcome my pain by sitting with it and saying, “Thank you for waking me up.”