Thoughts on Pain - the physical and emotional

Been a bit too busy of late - but meeting commitments and more importantly weighing commitments more carefully before I take them on.

Lots of thoughts about pain of both the physical and emotional variety, especially the latter.

We are taught much by our parents and our children. They are mirrors into our selves. JimN

So I thought about this emotional pain a bit.

Knowing that emotional pain can lead to growth and spiritual evolution if not medicated doesn't make it any easier-this is the role of faith. JimN

But other's wiser than me have also contemplated pain

Kahlil Gibran

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.

[Pain] is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Kahlil Gibran

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
The Prophet

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief, But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.
The Prophet

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
Kahlil Gibran
The Prophet, On Children

Physical Pain

By stretching for long periods of time - and enduring excruciating pain for those few moments - I have been able to reduce the amount of pain caused by an arthritic hip. The more I work these exercises - holding the stretches often for more than two minutes while practicing purposeful breathing in through the nose and then exhaling through pursed lips - being sure to contract the abdominal muscles - the less pain and discomfort I feel during the day. Inactivity is the enemy of old and arthritic joints - pain finds a fast home therein. A reduction in pain then requires a commitment to enduring it intensely but for a few brief moments a day. There must be a greater lesson in there somewhere.

My iPhone has an excellent stopwatch built into the Clock application that I use to time these stretches. Just a few minutes of pain a day provides freedom from suffering.

These techniques I use are a combination of standard athletic stretches and physical therapy exercises, but the duration of the stretches is derived from myofascial release techniques learned from my wife who herself learned them in a quest to reduce shoulder pain.