What is pain doing to me?!?

Pain, when at its strength, will isolate a person.  It creates a chasm of separation between the sufferer and their loved ones; it also drives a wedge between the sufferer and his/her hobbies, activities that bring pleasure, and things that bring purpose.  The greatest pain a person can experience deals with the attachment centre of the brain (citation: Ed Khouri, THRIVE Recovery).

Pain is destructive and can deteriorate one's mind, will, emotions, spirit, and body.  Pain is also effective at undermining a person's life capacity and potential.

Pain Compounds Itself

Pain grows on pain.  If you have had the opportunity to speak or live with someone in chronic, medical pain, you will know that pain corrupts your loved one's life.  Pain will lead the afflicted into isolation, damaged relationships, and potentially the removal of his/her meaning & significance.  The pain-sufferer, can easily be riddled with depression, anxiety, uncertainty, and feelings of hopelessness.

Is there a cure for pain?  Not particularly.  There are, however, some treatments: medication, talk therapy, hypnotism, miraculous occurrences, and a compensating increase in joy through loving and stable relationships.

I have been told, by many medical professionals, that Western medicine is a literal response to the problem of pain. Medications is the main 'treatment' for pain.  If it hurts, they will prescribe medication (and in many cases medication is required).

Why talk about pain if it is so bleak?

I get to meet people who have survived lives of horror, terror, and pain.  Their stories are FULL of pain.  Their memories and losses are lived day in and day out.  In fact, one might say, that such people's lives are so riddled with pain that pain is the survivor's full-time job!  The survivor's spare time is consumed with: the avoidance of pain, the medicating of pain, and the search for help, meaning, and hope.

This topic feels overwhelming, what could I do?

I get this question a lot: "What can I do with this overwhelming picture of pain?"

Get talking!  Through talking with a medical professional, through counsel, through spiritual coaching, and through talk therapy, you can identify your "saving joy".  The brain is designed to increase in joy capacity as an internal repair for pain and as a measure of strength.  If your joy level is higher than your pain level, you can repair.  If your joy level is lower than your pain level, you are experiencing trauma (citation from "Restarting" program: http://www.joystartshere.com/joy-starts-here-groups/).

Here is the other thing that talking will do: talking BREAKS isolation and stimulates left to right brain communication.  This left-to-right brain communication will build your capacity to resolve the pain you are experiencing or the pain of watching someone in pain.  Talking creates an opportunity for healing for the brain and for the heart.

Joy can trump pain!

Do you want to help someone you know in chronic pain?  Enter your joy, and invite them to join you in an activity, a memory, or a space where joy grows.

To learn more about building Joy after pain or trauma, send me a note and ask about an upcoming Joy seminar.

5 Things Never to Say to a Sexual Abuse Survivor

This is a short blog, inspired by things people regularly say to Sexual Abuse Survivors that are simply unhelpful and sometimes utterly harmful.

Things to never say to a Sexual Abuse Survivor:

1. Wasn't that a long time ago? 
2. Can't you just move on?  I mean, why aren't you over it yet?
3. There was this one person in WWII who was able to forgive… (then they pause long enough for the survivor to realize that their wounds are being measured against someone else's, even though the two stories have no direct connection and pain cannot be compared)…
4. I was raped and I got over it (glad to hear it, but that is completely irrelevant to someone else's story).
5. In the Bible we are told to forgive and forget (actually, forgiveness is a method of healing the survivor…but we are not able nor capable of forgetting without dissociating).

Things you can say to a Sexual Abuse Survivor:

1. I am here.
2. I am listening.
3. What would be helpful for you right now?
4. I don't know how to respond, but I am willing to learn.  I'm going to get some information so I can better understand how to be a good friend in this.
5. I am so glad that you could tell me.

TRIGGER WARNING: The image in this poster can potentially cause an emotional trigger.  

Photo Courtesy of: LINK

PAIN: Reality vs Fantasy (1 Year from Disclosure)

Picture from KoffeeKlub

As young children, many of us liked stories of war or conquest--not because of the gruesome realities of the violence, betrayal, and evil--but because of the many stories about triumph, honour, unlikely heroes and victories.  We like happy endings, no matter what horror or challenges led up to the happy ending.  In fact, sometimes we like the happy endings more, once we know that the story was gruesome but the ending was spectacular.  

It seems to me that glamour and success are relative to the contrast created by victory.  In other words, we are results oriented; when we can define a journey through its result(s), we will increase or decrease the role of suffering based on the amount of success experienced when reviewing the result.

Photo from:
http://westafricanprincess.wordpress.com/2012/07/

If you have been through a war or a major trauma, you have already learned that the result will not diminish the costs that it took to achieve the result (ex. victory in war versus the losses sustained during the war).  In reality, pain and success are like a two headed monster: they work together, and are quite inseparable.

HOW DOES PAIN APPLY TO RECOVERY?

Recently, I had a conversation with someone about the process of recovery from sexual abuse.  It occurred to me, despite my public writing and public speaking, that I still do an 'avoidance dance' by not fully revealing how difficult recovery can actually be.  In truth, recovery can be a vomit-inducing, sweat-producing, tear-staining process (sometimes literally and sometimes figuratively speaking).

Photo from FaithFriend: LINK

Why would I avoid telling the whole & awful truth about the recovery process?  Because some people don't want to hear the unfiltered truth; instead, some have expressed a desire for the filtered story only.  They want to know that I 'made it', not the stark and daily realities of the healing process.  They just want to hear, "I am OK".

But what they want isn't reality; what they want is the result.  They just want to know that everything worked out and the pain has stopped.  But the reality of recovery is that it is about "Progress, Not Perfection" (slogan from many Recovery programs).  In other words, pain is non-negotiable most of the time.

There are some scars from sexual abuse that may never go away.  In reality a person can learn to forgive, but he/she is also likely to never forget (excluding persons with high abilities to disassociate or go into denial--the ones who can 'unplug').

Instead, there is a hard road of counselling, redefining relationships, sometimes even a change in career or city, other times it may require personal losses, shame, uncertainty, fear, humiliation and so on.  Recovery can involve a loss upon loss, line upon line.

DO WE PREFER FANTASY?

We are a culture that feeds on entertainment, success stories, faith healings, and sometimes even fantasy.   Just think of how many people you know that spend their lives in denial or in pursuing the holy grail simply because dealing with their own issues would be too messy and too painful?  For some, it is easier to stay in denial or in fantasy, rather than walk the difficult road that is currently their path.

I am not against hope and I like miracles.  In fact, I have personally witnessed and tested out supernatural phenomena and miracles.  Nevertheless, I have come to the conclusion that 'until' a miracle or breakthrough is experienced, there is simply a lot of hard work and pain.  Such brazen reality is truly "OK" because suffering can yield good results (if the pain is for healing, not because of continued abuse).

All fairy tales have their 'other side' called reality.
Photo courtesy of: click HERE 

So we have a choice: face the pain and own the process OR deny the pain and avoid the outcome (and avoidance usually brings bad results).

Even if we wish for God to "take this cup from me" (Mark 14:36), suffering might be inevitable.  Fortunately, for those with faith, we know that God can bring good out of any mess.  We also know that perseverance builds character (Romans 5:3-5).  As the saying goes, "smooth seas do not make skillful sailors".

A few famous quotes about suffering and hope:

• "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart [Jesus] has overcome the world" (John 16:33, NIV)
• "Life is Suffering" (One of Four Buddhist "Noble Truths")
• '[l]ife's a piece of sh*t when you look at it--always look on the bright side of life' (Monty Python)
• "God had one son on earth without sin, but never one without suffering." (St Augustine)

GIVE ME SOME HOPE!!!

There is something within the human spirit that will fight to survive.  We know that pain is not the whole story and nothing but the story.  There is redemption, possibilities, hope, resurrection, new beginnings and so on.  We have this powerful urge to survive--no matter what.   Perhaps that is why suicide is such a sadness to so many--it is against our primal nature to live.

We all like the success stories.  I like to hear about how the prince gets the princess, how the pauper becomes wealthy, how the loser becomes the cool one.  I like success.  I like hearing about success.  I like knowing people who have succeeded.  These successes are part of the hope of living.  

WE WANT RESULTS!!!  AND WE NEED HOPE!  I encourage everyone I know to go through stories of hope; to connect with people who have hope; and to be in a community that teaches hope.  Get connected to a source of hope!

SO WHAT ABOUT THE LONG PROCESS?

"It is the crushed grape that makes the wine" (Anonymous).  Being crushed, step by step, yields a result; some would call this 'the refining process'.  No matter what the instrument of growth is, wanted or unwanted, right or wrong, once we are flattened out, we can still become something greater than before: I can become the "ME" that I always knew I was intended to "BE".

It was one year ago that I went public with my story: May (2012).  It has been a whirlwind journey since then.  I am grateful for a loving and supporting community including some friends, some family and even some strangers (please note, not all are supportive as some cannot or will not even face this with me).

Since 2012's disclosure, we have each been challenged, some have been pressed by ideologies, crushed by pain, raised up in faith, loved and yet others have been distanced.  Nevertheless, I can see the growth (not only my own growth, but the growth that family members have gone through alongside of me).  We are being refined by unwanted truths.

Abuse tells you that 'it is your fault'; silence also tells you that 'it is your fault'; but truth, love, and acceptance will tell you 'it was never your fault and I will be present with you in your sufferings (I will not hide or run, but I will STAY WITH YOU)'.  I was simply thrown into a cycle that I never wanted to be in.  Now it is my turn and my move.  The power is back in my corner.  And I choose to live!  I desire to thrive!  And I will purpose myself accordingly.  

This little grape doesn't go down without churning out some FINE WINE!!  (I smile as I type that last line).

BRAIN-MIND-SPIRIT SCIENCE

(By Dr. Karl Lehman, "Outsmarting Yourself").  Link to his work: CLICK HERE.

When we encounter pain, our brain-mind-spirit system always tries to process the painful experience. There is a very deliberate pathway that this pain processing attempt will follow, and there are specific processing tasks that we must complete as we travel along this pathway, such as staying emotionally connected, navigating the situation in a satisfying way, and correctly interpreting the meaning of the experience. When we are able to successfully complete this processing journey, we get through the painful experience without being traumatized – we emotionally and cognitively “metabolize” the experience in a healthy way, and instead of having any toxic power in our lives, the adequately processed painful experience contributes to our knowledge, skills, empathy, wisdom, and maturity. That is, when we successfully process a painful experience we don’t just stuff it down into our unconscious, or teach ourselves to think about other things. We actually get through it, stronger and wiser.

Unfortunately, various problems and/or limitations can block successful processing; and when we are not able to complete the processing journey, then the painful experience becomes a traumatic experience and the memories for these traumatic experiences carry unresolved toxic content. When traumatic memories are activated, the toxic content they carry comes forward and powerfully affects our perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, emotions, abilities, and choices.  (Excerpt from "Outsmarting Yourself" by Dr. Karl Lehman)