During this Venus retrograde in Leo cycle, I’ve been exploring the roots beneath my struggles with visibility. One of those roots is pain.
As I wrote in a previous essay in this series, when I am in physical pain, I tend to hide. I don’t want to be seen.
I’ve examined the thought patterns and beliefs that contribute to this, and the higher wisdom available to me when I’m not in the depths of pain despair.
I can certainly work with these beliefs to rewire them and try to form more empowering beliefs.
But it would also be nice to not be in pain. If you regularly suffer from pain, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The Surprising Way My Pain Goes Away
Through experiments and observation I’ve discovered a surprising way that my pain dissipates:
Visibility.
It is often the case that the thing that we avoid doing is the cure for what ails us.
More specifically, I’ve found five forms of visibility that help the pain dissipate:
- having an outlet to share my pain in a way that I feel seen and heard, but not judged or belittled
- feeling freedom and safety to express myself and share ideas that don’t relate to pain
- feeling in service to other people
- sharing my work in a forum where I feel it is received, valued, and makes a difference
- working in a capacity where I am using my body and my mind together in service of facilitating healing
Herein lies the irony:
When I’m in pain, the thing that I avoid — being visible — is the thing I know can help resolve my pain.
This may sound “woo” or weird. But pain is weird.
Recent research has shown that pain isn’t as simple as a signal from tissues to the brain. So much about how we experience pain, what makes it worse, and what makes it better, are still unknown.
In the next installment of this series I’ll share some of the nuances of what I’ve learned, and the sciences and theories of how and why this works.
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...