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When you are in pain, it can feel like the pain is all of who you are. The hurt can take over your thoughts. It can take over your body. It can color your entire perception of yourself, your life, and the future.
And when there is enough of it, it can become hard to remember that there is anything else. But your pain is not the totality of you.
In one of Teal’s teachings, she explains that we are not as singular as we tend to think we are. We have different parts within us, each with their own emotions, memories, fears, needs, and perspectives.
And one of those parts can be understood as the pain self. This is the part of you that carries what has hurt. The painful memories. The painful beliefs. The painful emotions. The losses, fears, and unmet needs that may never have been fully seen, felt, understood, or integrated.
Most people spend their lives trying to get away from this part. They suppress it, distract from it, try to fix it, rise above it, or become spiritual enough, positive enough, healed enough, or busy enough that they no longer have to feel it.
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But pain does not heal through rejection. And presence does not work when it is secretly just another strategy to make pain disappear. |
It is like saying to a crying child, “I’ll sit with you, but only so you stop crying as quickly as possible.” That child can feel the rejection underneath the gesture. And the pain self can feel it too.
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What pain actually needs is not opposition. It needs a different kind of relationship. One that says: I see you. I am listening. I am here with you. I am not going to abandon you just because you hurt. |
This does not mean becoming consumed by pain. It means recognizing that pain is calling your attention to something within you that needs presence, care, understanding, and integration.
This is part of what Teal will be exploring in her free live online Q&A about pain next weekend. During this event, you’ll have the opportunity to submit your questions about pain for the chance to have Teal answer them directly.
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