How Do I Process Old Pain?

Since I've been here, I feel like I'm doing the conscious suffering. And I feel like I opened, like the top of a sewage, and it just keeps coming and coming and coming. And I don't have my usual distraction methods like Internet or alcohol or anything. So it's really. I'm being really present with it, and I'm trying to also stay aware when the stories try to latch on to the pain. And then I realize that it's just trying to make sense of it, and it feels like an ancient pain, and I'm surrendering to it. But at the same time, I feel exhausted and my physical body feels weak. And I'm just wondering, is there something I can maybe do for myself to just not so much ease it, but just somehow, like, go through it a little bit with a bit more strength or comfort or for physically speaking.

This is the strength. You are going through it without any of your addictions, whether it's the Internet, alcohol, drugs, or whatever you are. This is strength. The fact that you are going through this without any devices is strength. The only thing is, is that the mind is telling you that you may have a picture of what strength is, and maybe you have a picture of strength is when you feel really good and when you feel really happy. That's a different kind of strength. But this is a strength of emptying our baggage. And it there. There really isn't any easy way but just to go through it. Now, this is a critical point for you because you're at this where now you feel like as if, oh, I want it just to be a little bit easier. And that's the point where maybe you might watch yourself and you see where you might pick up your device or have a drink or whatever you. What your normal things that you do to not go through something. And, you know, there's hundreds of things out there that we could use as our devices. But this is the critical point. And you're right, it is exhausting. So why not just be exhausted? There's nothing wrong with being exhausted. Maybe you have an image of yourself that you should not be exhausted, that you should be this, I don't know, happy, bubbly person or somebody who looks really strong and who isn't tired or, I mean, this. The physical body gets tired. Emotional work to feel it is exhausting, especially when it's been a well of emotion that we have to go through. I'm tempted to say something at the same time. I'm not, because I don't. I don't want you to choose this because you want to run from this. The emotions. There was one time where I went through really, really like very strong motions. It was very difficult, very hard. Dark night of the soul, some people will call it. And then the fellow that I was dating at the time, who was also awakening as well, he said to me, well, you can ask for it to be slowed down if you want. I went, really? I mean, that was a thought. Okay. So I said, yeah, okay, I want it to be slower. And I got it. But when I look back, it's something that I regret because now over time, I have these little inklings of having to go through the dark night of the soul instead of going through it, just going through it. Now we're going to choose what we're going to choose. And whatever however reason that happened, it happened like that. And it's an acceptance that it happens like that. It's just a longer process. So if you can, I invite you to just really go into it. Allow your body just to be tired, rest more, go into. Do an inner body meditation. There was a time during some deep meditation that I would go through like a lot of meditation. And it was in the evening, it was bedtime and my body slept, but I was fully awake and just watching my body sleep, feeling my body sleep and. And yet my eyes were open the whole time. Like I. I couldn't move, my body couldn't move. Our body is not our consciousness. So we can be conscious and have the body do its thing because it's an impermanent device and it gets tired and we can allow it to sleep, rest, yet be fully aware and conscious. So this is what I'm inviting you to do when you say you're tired. Go and lay down and rest your body and be fully aware awake. I mean, you may fall asleep and that's okay, it's not a problem. But it's an important time to now just nurture yourself in the feels probably would feel like an enveloping emotions that just are there. So do some things for yourself that will nurture instead of going to your devices. Whether that means taking a hot bath, although I don't know if there's bath tubs here. You know, whatever makes you feel more grounded and not so lost in the emotion. So the fact that you. There is an awareness and you are the witnessing presence to this and you feel it. Those two together are the vehicles for transformation and for letting this go. It's just unfortunately because whatever is down there, we don't know, we don't Even know how long it's been there for and how much we've held back, held down there. So we don't know when it's going to end. So don't even go into your mind and say, I just want this over with. Of course the mind wants this over with. But it's just having to go through it one by one. One by one or ten by ten, it doesn't really matter. It's just your experience in this moment. And if I had to guess, your mind is telling you almost like, I shouldn't be unhappy, but you're unhappy. And it's the happiness and unhappiness that we so desperately want on the conditioned level, on the level of form, which is not going to be the true happiness as we go through this. We have to go through, go to what is deeper, that is the uncaused happiness. So happiness that is not caused by any particular event or unhappiness that is caused by any particular event, not caused by any particular event. And this is the play and the balance that we must bring and that our consciousness, being aware of it, brings that. So the full acceptance of that pain that is arising and allowing it to arise and feeling it, while at the same time connecting to that awareness, that consciousness, who or what is aware of that pain, that awareness is who you really are, not the pain. The pain is something old that's there, something very old that needs to be let out.

I feel like a lot of it is not even mine.

Yeah, probably. Maybe it isn't. Some of it. Some of it is. But yes, we are as we are the awakening consciousness. Through us, our individual forms, we are also awakening that which is, you can say past, present and future, but there's no past, present and future. You've heard of the hundredth monkey syndrome, where if there's enough people, a transformation happens. Like, everybody sort of goes into it, you know, like, for example, you get enough people talking about, I don't know, particular thing, let's do the Coke because we did the Coke commercial, okay? Enough people see that and there's something happens and enough people drink it and they then. And suddenly it's like just spirals. It just like everybody now changes or. And it could be on the other level, unconscious level, where there's enough people that are unconscious. It could take one person, say, like, example, like Hitler, who has somehow enough, in a way, charisma that he had, because his speeches were actually incredible. But it was that unconscious aspect of him that he was able to gather enough people around him. Where it almost turned that whole. The whole country into that. So the awakening consciousness happening through each and every one of us at some point, if there is enough of that, enough people that are awakened, something will shift. So when you say you feel like it's just not yours, it is true. We are we, past, present and future, you can say on a spiritual level, exist in the timeless realm manifests in the body, still, still here, still with us. It's like bringing something with you here to the present moment. And when we awaken, we actually then, because we're so tied to each other, there's one connection. As we awaken, something happens also on that level out there, whether it's past or whether it's future, because it really doesn't exist. I had this experience one time in. In a church in Switzerland. Some of it was old, some of it was new. And I was in the old part. And I had this experience where I just couldn't move my body because I saw past, present and future happening all in this moment. And when I saw that and had that experience, I realized that, wow, there is no time on the spiritual level. There is no time that all dimensions are happening, but we only see a portion of that diamond, that dimension. So we are more than just our body and our mind. We are more than just our emotions that or the events that happened to us and now that we have to work through because we just didn't have that ability to work through it then. But we can become lost when we lose that dimension of space in us, of stillness, and think that we're only this. And when we think we're only this, that's when it becomes difficult. So let your light shine even more on. On this. Not by wishing it to go away. Because when you have even the slightest desire for it to be gone, you haven't fully accepted. Full acceptance means that you are willing to feel this forever. Yeah, I know. But you know what? You know it'll change. Everything changes. So this moment is not going to be the same the next moment or a week or a year from now. But full acceptance actually means you're willing to accept this forever and forever. It just on the form level, it just doesn't exist because all forms are impermanent. When you know that on the spiritual level, then you can really say, yeah, I'm willing to accept this fully, completely, because we know that it will change. But if you're not on this, the consciousness, the higher consciousness, then you think, oh, my God, are you kidding me? I don't want to feel this forever. Because remember, full acceptance has no time. There's only this moment. And this moment in the experience of this moment is what's happening inside you now. So this is where the mind and the body are fighting each other. The mind and consciousness, the consciousness that you are, the mind is still saying, oh, yeah, but, you know, I really don't want this. I'm willing to feel it, but there's something in me that doesn't quite really want this. And then be honest with yourself and choose. When something arises in you of an emotion, you can ask yourself, am I willing to let this go? Not with the mind, but feel your body. And your body will answer you. If it's yes, your body will open. There's an openness and a relaxedness that'll happen. And that you're able then to let it go. Maybe you're not willing to let it go, and that's okay. So then you can ask yourself, okay, am I willing to accept this? Because the acceptance could be also the integration. Am I willing to integrate it then as part of my experience of the totality of who I am, of body, mind and spirit? Because maybe that integration, that acceptance on that level is kind of stirring the pot in you. It. There's a movement that begins to happen when we accept it as an integration into our beingness, body, mind and spirit that it becomes and transmutes, transform into the one consciousness. So we can then use that experience as a teaching tool for somebody else, perhaps. So this experience, which is a key, we can say, let's call it a key. If we fully accept it and we are the awareness and we witness it, we accept it, allow it to be there. It goes through a process, a transformational process in its own time. And all we have to do is just be awake to it, aware to it, and it just transforms like water boiling water turning into steam and transforms and connects with this life that we are. And then soon enough, it's just this life. We have the memory of that experience. And now we're able to perhaps use that as a gift for somebody else who is going through the same thing. Just got to do the work, sweetheart. Not caused by any particular event. And this is the play and the balance that we must bring. And that our consciousness, being aware of it, brings that. So the full acceptance of that pain that is arising and allowing it to arise and feeling it, while at the same time connecting to that awareness, that consciousness, who or what is aware of that pain, that awareness is who you really are, not the pain the pain is something old that's there, something very old that needs to be let out.

I feel like a lot of it is not even mine.

Yeah, maybe it isn't. Some of it. Some of it is. But yes, we are as we are the awakening consciousness. Through us, our individual forms, we are also awakening that which is, you can say past, present and future, but there's no past, present and future. You've heard of the hundredth monkey syndrome, where if there's enough people, a transformation happens. Like, everybody sort of goes into it, you know, like, for example, you get enough people talking about, I don't know, particular thing, let's do the Coke, because we did the Coke commercial, okay? Enough people see that and there's something happens and enough people drink it and they then. And suddenly it's like, just spirals. It just. Like everybody now changes or. And it could be on the other level, unconscious level.