  Spiritual
This week: Coping With Pain Edited by: Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline  
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How do you cope with physical and/or mental pain? Especially when you are dealing with it long-term?
This week's Spiritual Newsletter is all about coping with illness, and finding a purpose.
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline |
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Life, inevitably, brings pain. You scrape your knees. You bump your head. You fall ill. Many will suffer from a broken heart at one point or another. We experience loss. Physically and emotionally, we bear the scars of these experiences.
Pain can be difficult to endure. At times, it can feel as though we will never recover. I’ve been there. You might have been there. Getting through pain can be a day-by-day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute challenge.
I’ve been told that these experiences are a test. I don’t know about that. If pain is a test, it’s quite a cruel one, and I am not entirely sure what it is that’s being tested. Courage? Resilience? I don’t think there’s any shame in being fed up when you’re hurting. And whether you recover or not is not always in your own hands. I’ve also been told that we’re never given more than we can endure, but I know that’s not true.
If you’re wondering why I am writing such a gloomy newsletter, the answer is that I have experienced quite a bit of pain over the last couple of months, on both the physical and the emotional front. I have pondered why this happens and how to best get through it.
There’s another thing that I have been told and that’s that when people experience pain, they’re more likely to pray. I don’t know about that, either. I reckon that some don’t. I do know that I have prayed, not just for myself but also for family and friends and loved ones who are going through their own rough times.
Prayer can help, I find. It may not be a miracle cure, but getting out there how you are feeling instead of just holding it inside can be comforting. When you’re praying – or when I am praying, at least – it’s not just a matter of going through what’s going on, but also the creation a positive vision of after. An after in which things are better. I think that so long as you can envision that after, there is hope.
My own health problems aren’t that serious. A broken tooth, which led to toothache and an infection, which led to different courses of antibiotics to find one I wasn’t allergic to, to an extraction and a fracture in my jaw. I’m currently recovering from that. It’s not that difficult for me to see that unless there are further complications, a few weeks from now I will be feeling better, and a few months from now I should be all healed.
It’s more difficult when you’re living with a condition that there is no cure for. I know people in that position. I personally have Autism, which there is no cure for either, and it’s not easy, but it doesn’t cause me pain. Some people live with pain day in, day out.
A friend of mine experiences a lot of pain every day. He also suffers from body spasms. He used to be very physically active. Now he can no longer work, or do many of the things that he used to do. For more than a year the only times he went out was when he went to the doctor or the hospital. He couldn’t walk for more than a few metres. One day, he woke up and felt a strong urge to head into the woods down the road. He grabbed his walking stick and headed out. He made it into the woods and sat down for several hours. The change in him was quite amazing.
He still suffers from pain and spasms. He definitely cannot go out every day. After he does go out, he needs to rest for a couple of days. He can make it a lot further than he did, however. He still goes into the woods when he can. He’s made friends on his walks. He’s helping to improve nature in the area, bit by bit. He and his new friends have started a community group aimed at looking after the land, the woods and wildlife, as well as traditional crafts such as dry stone walling. His role is less physical and more research-based and communication – he’s the one who brought everyone together, the one who set the ball rolling, the one who is bringing positive change in the community. He feels that his life has a purpose once more. So, what led to this first call into the woods? I don’t know. Whatever it is, I am grateful that it happened. He personally feels that being in nature is a spiritual experience.
I think that one of the most difficult aspects of living with a chronic illness is that it does permanently alter your life. Aside from the physical pain that comes with many illnesses, there is the mental pain. Hopes and dreams and goals get dashed. It’s not easy to find new ones.
That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible. Even when you cannot get out of bed because of pain and fatigue, it doesn’t mean that you no longer have anything to offer. If you are reading this, you are likely to be a writer. Your writing is meaningful. You can touch people with your words. Make them smile. Make them think. Make their own days a little better.
You have meaning. You have a purpose. You are appreciated. Never forget that.
I wish you well,
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline
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Spiritual: January 24, 2018 Issue [#8725]
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