Does the pain ever go away?

I swear, this was the first question on my mind. Every single morning - for a long long long time.

It was also the last question as I tried to fall asleep through the tears.

I used to ask this with a sincere, broken and desperate heart to everyone who listened to how I got my heart shattered.

I suffered.

Weight Loss, dark rings under my eyes and pale skin.

I REALLY suffered. You may read about it here and learn about practical steps you can take right now to relieve emotional suffering (it is different than pain).

I was at the mercy of this agony and had no idea what to do.

I felt helpless and unable to stop the pain.

It DIDN'T have to be that way, I have since learned.

I have learned that we experience PAIN in the moment of a tragic event.

The shock, disbelief and body filled with adrenaline and cortisol - in one instant.

After that, the pain subsides, just like a papercut.

Unless…

Unless we keep the story alive in our minds (or in the case of the papercut, keep pulling the skin open to check how deep the cut is).

Over and over again.

Reliving the trauma in our heads and feeling it in our bodies as if it is taking place right now. It is the logical mind‘s job to find a cause for the suffering that the body is experiencing, moment to moment. And so the mind plays out the stories over and over again to justify why we feel so sad, depressed or helpless right now, creating an endless loop of thinking and feeling. All of this happening when we are probably just sitting on the sofa, staring at a wall!

BUT THAT IS NOT ALL!

I have since learned that we store only fractions of events in our minds.

The incoming data is too much for our senses, and so the brain deletes, distorts or simply leaves out details that it does not find important, plus it can only experience them through our personal filters (everything we believe and value about the world in accordance to our upbringing) which in turn taints the actually happening even more! There are many studies proving that in the situation of a significant event like a bank robbery or car crash, eyewitnesses report events completely differently.

What this means is that our memory starts off NOT having the truth and nothing but the truth, your Honor (I couldn‘t resist that last bit!) And if that is not disturbing enough to our credibility of believing our thinking, every time we recall a memory, it is experienced through our CURRENT state of being and then stored that way. (I love Professor Moran Cerf‘s work on this topic.)

In other words:

If I had shared that sad story with someone that could have guided me to a positive feeling first, highlighted the prospect of a better future and reframed the value of the experience, it would have started to take on a new meaning AND get stored as the new version as long as I repeated the process a few times.

Instead, I lived alone and in my head, playing out scary futures, sad love stories, intensified my suffering and innocently created a more painful reality, jaded by my tunnel vision.

We don‘t even know what is “real”.

Quantum physics is proof of that - nothing is as it seems!

Back then I wholeheartedly believed my thinking, indeed, I was so emerged in my thoughts that I did not know a version of me existed APART from the thinking. I lived in my self-created hell on earth - innocently.

Now I know how to break the thinking-feeling loop, because I have SEEN it is really how my experiences are created! I know that thoughts are fleeting unless I give them more energy via my attention. I choose to “distract” myself with what will feel good and is beneficial for my body, mind and soul. Nature, music and art (back then I used to stroke my cat Smokey). And when I feel balanced, and still feel the need to think about what was tearing at my heartstrings to make future decisions, I am clear and empowered to do so.

But sometimes it is too difficult to navigate on our own and we should never hesitate to reach out to anyone we respect and believe has our utmost best interest at heart!