A river of pain

Sometimes you have to be knocked off balance to find your center. You have to go through the fires of life to burn away the impurities. These challenging bits of life can be full of pain. But pain has the potential to be the most productive teacher or the most destructive force. It all depends on how it is used.

I believed this year was about continuing to dive into my understanding of physical pain so I could continue to better my practice as a physical therapist. But this year has been so little about the physical manifestation of pain and so much about all the other pain we carry.

The more I experience, the more people I connect with, the more lives I bear witness to, I have found pain buried under everything. The physical manifestation of pain is so often not the beginning. Physical pain is the last ditch attempt of the body to be heard. It arrives as the pain flows out of the body because there is nowhere left to hide it.

Life is painful. There is no way to avoid or eliminate pain. That is one of the few truths I know. Some of us hold deep crevices within our being, a vast amount of space that feels empty for whatever reason. Life provides endless opportunities to fill those spaces, most often with pain. We gather and gather, from life and from others, pain we are too afraid to witness in the world.

In a way it feels easier to hide the pain away in these spaces within. The deep crevices that feel endless. But all spaces fill with time. And the emptiness within soon becomes less empty. The collection of pain, the filling of these spaces, if unaware, can lead to disastrous floods. When there is no more space to hide the pain away, that is when the pain overflows.

Only then does the flood begin. The physical body has no other choice but to express the pain. It is our precious bodies last attempt to maintain its environment. The pain was never tended to kindly and now it must flow somewhere. Physical pain is not the only option to release this weight of pain collected within.

What troubles me most is when the flood of pain, that has nowhere else to go within, is used as a weapon. Pain inflicted on another. Anger and rage can boil up from this place. The collection of pain, the attempt to hold it all within, can result in an explosion. Pain becomes the bullets in our own proverbial guns.

They say hurt people, hurt people. It is from this overflow of pain within. This deep well of pain we attempt to hide. The cascading of it all at once is too much for us to bear. It destroys not only the person attempting to hide it but also all those in the vicinity.

Pain can be such a destructive force. But it can also be a productive and beautiful teacher. Water is one and the same. When water is allowed to flow freely, it carves a beautiful path through solid rock. It does not do this all at once, but little by little. Over time, majestic canyons are carved out of solid rock. The water is productive as long as it is allowed to flow through an unobstructed path.

When water is withheld, by a damn or obstruction, it becomes a weapon. When the dam breaks, the weight of the water destroys whatever is in its path. Because the water was dammed until it was forced to overflow, it became destructive instead of productive.

We have the potential to allow pain to be productive or destructive within us as well. But first we must take stock as to why we are holding so much pain within. I have begun to understand that we are all walking around with an unbearable amount of pain within. From every moment of life that we were unable to express the pain we felt, it found its way into our body. Drop by drop, we have all collected a vast reservoir within.

The why behind this has been my calling. What in our world tells us that it is not safe to express pain? What teaches us that it is better to build a dam than allow water to run as freely as a river?

Colonization; of our lands and our bodies.

Dams didn’t exist in indigenous cultures. (I am not a historian, this may not be absolute truth, but you get my idea…) They held reverence for water and understood how productive it could be when allowed to flow. They also understood the dangers when attempting to contain it. The same with pain. It is rarely withheld, rather it is used to produce. Art, music, storytelling are all produced by the free flow of pain.

Only when the ideas of more, bigger and better arrived from foreign shores did dams arrive. I believe it is also the same principles that made colonizers believe they had a right to control their external worlds with force, that we began to swallow those truths within. We learned that we must contain and control our internal environments as well. Build dams instead of letting the pain flow wild and free.

In today’s world, we do not allow our bodies to operate in the most efficient and effective way. Our bodies are messy places. They are not clean, controlled and tidy things. Our bodies want to tantrum and cry when we feel pain. We want to let it flow. But from such an early age, we have been misguided into holding it in. We are subliminally taught to suppress and repress and build a dam.

This way of living is slowly destroying us. All of our dams are collectively reaching a breaking point. Pain is going to be expressed one way or another. And when a dam breaks, there is little to do to protect anything in its path. Destruction is inevitable. This is a scary thing to witness.

But I do have hope. Because this past week I witnessed thousands of people express pain. People cried, wrote, created art, expressed and felt the pain out loud. Rather than let it gather within, behind a precariously weak dam, they let it flow. So did I. And it was painful but necessary.

It was also messy. But not nearly as messy as it could have been. Dams have been breaking all over the world lately. Some have used that flow to produce positive change and others to destroy whatever is in their path. Pain will always be expressed, one way or another.

I have been working on removing the dams within myself for years. I have slowly and deliberately cleansed myself of so much pain that I have carried. With every release, I have felt lighter and more productive in the world. It has been effortful and time consuming but necessary work.

This past week reminded me how good it feels to have an unobstructed path for pain to flow within myself. The river raged and I am sure the canyon within is a bit deeper now, but how fucking beautiful. I refuse to contain pain in my body anymore. I refuse to build any dams. I no longer will allow pain to be a force of destruction, only production.

I have seen this happening in the collective as well. So many people in my circle have been doing this same work. Dams are being destroyed by choice rather than by unexpected events. Pain is flowing freely for many of us now. We are desperately working to decolonize our own bodies and allow them to return to the wild state in which they operate best.

This is incredibly beautiful but also poses a threat to those who are clinging to the foundations that colonization built. Yes, those foundations may feel like they are holding you up, but it is a false sense of security. They want you to feel like the only way to manage pain is to hide it. This is too far from the truth for me to express fully.

Again, when pain flows, it becomes the greatest producer and teacher in our lives. Allowing pain to serve its purpose, to be wild within and without, betters our world.

It may look and feel scary but it will be okay. Let the pain flow. Better out than in. Quit trying to keep your pain hidden behind an ever weakening dam. Let it flow. Let it be productive so it will never have to be destructive again. Become a river of pain rather than a reservoir.

Pain is my greatest teacher. I hold it with reverence every time I am gifted with the opportunity to allow it to flow. Like my pain, I will allow my words to flow freely. I will no longer hold back and only express the nice truths I discover.

Hard truths are important truths too. My writing these days may get a little messier but more passionate. It may make you uncomfortable and I will not apologize. This is my truth. This is my pain. This is me letting it flow.