What is Pain? More precisely, what is emotional pain?
The image above shows the pathway for how we perceive physical pain. The pathway for emotional pain is different but can produce equally or even greater effects, including physical effects.
How then do we define something so intangible yet so real and so harsh as emotional pain?
Just like me, I am sure you too have had numerous painful experiences. Some are much easier to get over than others. Some just have to be worked out of the system over time. Regardless, there are steps that we all can take to help us push past the pain when it feels like it will never subside.
To get back to the definition of this “pain”, I think it is best to define it by example.
A few days ago, I lost my best friend. I felt as though the external atmospheric pressure had suddenly shot up so high that all the air was forced out of my body! How could I move, eat, talk, laugh, go out or even think anymore?
A void that seemed to be abysmal was created by this loss.
This is what “pain” is: that hollowness; the emptiness; the dull,constant ache; the ennui; all this and much more is what makes up the pain.
When the proverbial rug was pulled out from under me five and a half years ago, I felt that pain like I had never felt it before. I lost almost everything that I had for the first forty seven years of my life. Thankfully I still had my son, my mother and my brothers.
My life was shattered. My face was shattered. My career path was shattered. My emotional reference points were shattered. I was at a loss.
Many persons, including my relatives and friends (and perhaps even me) felt that was the end of my life. And it was. It was the end of the first part of my life.
It was also the beginning of my second chance at life.
Slowly, the “pain” was used to push forward. Step by baby step. Systematically I dragged myself out of the pit of despair.
The physical damage was done. What God had made and man had tried to destroy, no man could remake as He had done. I had to grow to accept this new me. The acceptance came as gradual changes took place, both in my appearance and in my thinking.
The financial damage was staggering for a divorced mother of one, with both a home mortgage and vehicle loan to repay and savings diverted to reconstructive and plastic surgery. All this compounded by no more steady salary from teaching in a public school as I had been called before the medical board and accepted retirement on medical grounds. I am still in the process of overcoming this obstacle but it is getting easier day by day.
Then there was the big one. The emotional hurdles that could pose a challenge for even the best “Olympian”. The hardest part for me was to put on a bright face for everyone around me. They seemed less able to accept what had happened than I was. I could not let them be hurt further by seeing my own hurt and pain.
How could I explain to anyone the confusion in my mind? I no longer knew who I was. Prior to the incident, if anyone asked, “Who is Caron Asgarali?” I think I could have answered. I might have said that she is a teacher, a mother, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a runner…But now, I was unsure.
I questioned if I really even knew who I was before. Everything that was real now seemed unreal. I felt that there was nothing I could do and no one to whom I could turn (except my God).
I felt unworthy. Unworthy to be around people and for them to want to be around me. I felt defeated and insecure; incapable of doing anything. I wanted to not be anymore. And, I could not verbalize it to anyone.
There were no thoughts of suicide. I had come to understand that it was not yet my time, so I had to wait.
Within that waiting, in the midst of all that darkness, far away in the distance, was a hint of light. Very dim light but light nonetheless.
I searched out that light and kept it in my focus like an overboard passenger holding on to the remnant of a Styrofoam container that now pollutes the oceans; holding on to stay afloat.
Out of that darkness I was slowly drawn. Picking up the pieces of my life, putting each delicate piece back into its slightly distorted space, to move closer to the clearing, out of the darkness.
In retrospect, there were some key elements that helped me to push past that pain and begin an upward spiral to the second phase of my life – a phase that seems to have more meaning, greater focus and more gratification at the very least.
This phase is trademarked by turbulent economic, moral and spiritual times. The blood of our countrymen, whatever is our country, seeps unceremoniously into news feeds, blog posts, Twitter and Instagram.
Values and morals, respect for life, compassion, empathy, consideration, forgiveness, mercy, love and peace are foreign concepts for many of the younger generation.
Our people seem to be unable to push past pain and thrive successfully and harmoniously. From my perspective, it seems to be each man (and woman) for himself (herself).
Fortunately, my life lessons have taught me that where there is hurt, there is always hope and that we can learn to transform that hurt into hope.
No matter who you are, what your background is, what you have done or where you have been, the pain that you are feeling, the pain that is holding you back from achieving your best life yet, from fulfilling your purpose, that very pain is what you can use to help propel you forward.
It is not going to be easy but there is a systematic way in which it can be done to help with the process of stepping on your pain to get to a better place.
I used the process and it helped me to publish three books since the incident, to begin promoting peace and to run my first half marathon! (that is not me in the picture!)
I will share the steps I followed and still do follow after every setback. I grouped them into four categories. There are 10 (+1) steps in the four categories. The +1 came about as an afterthought when I was doing that +1 step! Funny to me as it would be for you, if I was saying it out loud to you!
Here goes:
The four categories are:
- Emote (steps 1-3)
- Stay Afloat (steps 4 and 5)
- Devote (steps 6-8)
- Promote (steps 9 and 10)
Step 11 or 10(+1) applies to all four categories.
The 10 (+1) steps for pushing past the pain are:
- Goal setting
- Acceptance
- Minute by Minute living
- Exercise and well being
- Support
- Honor God
- I after you (humility)
- Forgiveness
- Training the brain
- Embrace giving
10 (+1). Reflection
Put them all together they spell GAMESHIFTER! Appropriate is it not?
The system is elegant yet simple, familiar and very powerful. Shift your game for success. Not gamechanger. That implies a sudden and drastic transformation that requires little or no effort.
GAMESHIFTER however implies slow, manageable effort in a methodical manner that brings about lasting, meaningful change.
If you feel like you are surviving instead of striving then the practices and action steps that I use in the GAMESHIFTER can help you.
Take a look at my book, Bounce Back Better 10 (+1) Key Steps for Building Resilience, see if you think you can relate to it as a sister, a mother, a daughter, an employee, an entrepreneur or someone who has lost a best friend. Let me know in the comments if you can.
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