How do we harness the power of love to heal pain?
I believe if you have experienced love, you can take that feeling and harness it to treat pain. For example, if you are someone who is in pain, it may help to view your pain as a baby that needs to be nurtured and loved. Or you may want to view your pain as a partner or friend that you love dearly. This can soften you to your pain: https://www.raychenzen.com/post/soft-is-strong
Begin to manage negative self-talk by talking to your pain like they are someone you love. Saying things like:
“Even though you are hurting me and making me feel really down I love you”
“I know you are doing your best to get better”
“I’m here for you”
“I acknowledge that you are necessary for me to heal”
“Even though I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, I know I will be ok”
If you are in pain, start to practise self-love by taking care of your mind, body, and spirit. Look after your wellbeing by choosing from the wealth of tools that are available to us. Rest, sleep hygiene, nutritional balance, movement and exercise as medicine, mindfulness, community and socialisation, animal therapy (e.g., playing with your pets), and art therapy are just some of the things you can integrate. Reach out if you need help integrating the tools to manage your pain.
Self love in the midst of pain is often the hardest thing to do. It requires setting a clear intention each and every day to love yourself. To come home to yourself with an attitude of kindness, openness, acceptance, and most importantly, love. It requires attention to your experience and the way you are feeling so you can treat yourself to what you need.
Examples of self love:
Preparing a healthy meal and eating it mindfully
Chatting to a loved one and expressing your love for them i.e., give love to receive love.
Saying NO to the things/people that you know are harmful e.g., drugs and alcohol, gambling, toxic people
Spending time each day doing something you love e.g., playing music, cooking, swimming
Getting some sun, fresh air each day.
Sometimes in the midst of great pain, all you have to fall back on is hope. Hope that you will get through this and everything will be OK. Hope may be all you have. Hope can be your saviour in dark times.
As a therapist, I can certainly introduce love into my treatments. I think it requires a degree of openness and vulnerability on my part to let people feel loved, heard, and understood. Only when people in pain are made to feel respected and cared for, can they trust and receive love.
My lived experience of pain allows me to speak from personal experience which is often more powerful than my professional experience. It allows us all to open up and share in the commonality of human suffering. Just because I am the therapist and you are the patient, does not mean I haven’t suffered and struggled with pain. It doesn’t mean I can’t learn from you just as much as you can learn from me.
Obviously professionalism and duty of care should always remain paramount. But gone are the days of keeping the patient at arms length and giving a cold, clinical assessment and treatment.
Allowing you to feel safe, cared for, and listened to is really the main purpose of my role as a therapist.
Empowering pain sufferers to take ownership of their health.
Please reach out to me if you are struggling with pain and need to find your way out. I am here for you.
With love and gratitude,
Ray
Opmerkingen