I have avoided emotions for much of my life, most of the time not even realizing I was doing so.  I did not realize that much of the anxiety I was feeling was actually a by-product of me trying like mad NOT to feel some other emotion.  I was living life with “don’t go there” as my mantra.

Now, I live my life with quite the opposite mantra:  GO THERE NOW!

Physical pain is not the dilemma our minds like to tell us it is.  Our thoughts come roaring into our awareness:

This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt.

The old pain is back, oh no!

I can’t stand this!

And on and on…

The key to moving forward is to NOT GIVE YOUR MIND ANY CREDIT.  Treat it like you would a young child – lovingly, with compassion, but don’t take it seriously.  If you believed everything your three-year-old told you, your life would look much different.  You’d be feeding her ice cream because she said she couldn’t live without it.  You’d be letting her stay up late because she said she didn’t want to go to bed.

Respectfully decline to believe your own mind.

Pain is just there to let you know that you need to turn and focus on your emotions and what’s been shoved down, pushed aside, or stuffed away for later.  It’s the steam escaping from the pot right before it boils over.  It’s just a signal, a message, or an alert.  Beep, beep, says your pain!  You must GO THERE NOW!  To the emotional stuff you don’t want to face!

Can’t find that emotional stuff?  Don’t know what it is?  That’s okay.  All you need to do is focus your awareness on your emotional inner world (use last week’s post to help you do so).  Let the pain be – it’s there, and that’s okay.  There’s no denying, no arguing, no fighting against it.  See it for what it is – just a signal – and then follow the directions it’s trying to give you.  Go toward all those things that haven’t been dealt with, faced, or felt.

That’s the journey.