On Befriending Pain

Pain is something many people are leaving behind. It's not cool, or sexy. It doesnt get you high. It's actually quite sobering, and when you start to see it, it remains with you. You don't change it. You don't manipulate it. It exists.

Part of my life these days has become around being very intimate with pain.

Since Last year, I’ve gone through the anniversary of my assault, which opened up many big doors of pain. The original one was around feeling my No not be respected. The ones that followed were around not being believed in my story, and then the many tinner ones that followed were around people saying that they cared for me and did not have the “time” to be there.

It sobered me up, from this Love and Light position I’ve been holding for a while.  The initiations into shamanism, sexuality, plant medicines, and altered medicines. All of it, dissolved away the moment this pain I’m now becoming closer friends with has now greeted me, and given me something.  It lives in the silence, in the quiet. The more I live there, the more I realize that this place is where I call home.

It's always been there, before the assault.

And now, with this,  the world every day begins to unfold something new for me. The air tastes a bit better, the wind seems to be a bit gentler. The water richer.

This pain is the pain we all share in some way. Whether or not you've been physically assaulted.

Assault happens on a daily occurrence. Some are so minor, you go on by your life pretending it never touched you, until that one day it piles all on on top of you, and out of nowhere the world feels dimmer.

Micro Assaults.

What I’m here to share with you, is a way of acknowledging the pain that exists in the room, and not being scared of it. Or washing it away. Not wanting to fix it. Not wanting to hide it. Not wanting to put on a mask.

The People who are close to me now, are people who I have chosen. People who don’t go in and make it about them. People who in some way acknowledge pain as a presence in life, keep it, and choose to live on anyway. These are the people I wish to grow a community with.