​​Owning Our Pain

I chose this photo for what it represents. It was a time in my life where I was beginning to embrace the pain, but not let it suffocate me. Life changing moment on North Topsail Beach.

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​Owning Our Pain
 
Do you own your pain?

What intense words. Many of us cannot even bare to acknowledge our pain let alone own it. We walk through this life doing everything in our power to ignore it, cover it up and dismiss it.

To own our pain is to embrace its presence and the story that we walk alongside hand in hand.
To own our pain is to admit that its presence is a core wound in our lives that has defined who we are today.
To own our pain is humbly embracing our weakness knowing it is making us stronger for the steps we will take forward.
To own our pain is to show our humanness, a common denominator for those paths we will cross.  
Pain is complicated.

It breathes in the depths of our bodies seeping from our skin. I have experienced how it shows itself through physical ailments. It can speak through one’s body when we don’t have the words to speak of the pain.

I have lived through pain in a mental capacity that captivates the soul and hides within one’s darkness until it is spoken aloud.
These words and survival modes are not foreign, they are common. I believe most experience pain and emotion in similar ways; we just deny ourselves from talking about it.

Why? Why are we so afraid to talk about something that is true and real for each of us?

Our lives are lived often in a theater for the world to see only what we choose. We hold back. We keep within those stories of pain and human weakness close to our heart, for we fear we are alone.

We fear what others think of us. We fear that one will only see us as weak.

The truth is we are not alone. Each of us walks through the journey of life with stories. We walk with pain. We carry ourselves in ways to hide from the world.

We need to stop the charade. It is time that we begin to walk together in the messiness of this life. The lessons learned in healing are what we offer to the person next to us.

Then there is the other side of that idea where the pain we hold often leads us to not embrace our accountability. When we feel our pain, when we experience our pains core; we let it take on our lives in ways we wish we it hadn’t.

It is easy to project what we are struggling through onto another.

I have done this more than once in my life unknowingly, for the pain was too great to understand or process. I have had others hold me responsible unfairly for their pain, as they projected their journey into fault rather than owning their role in the pain that they suffered.

We all can easily be a part of each other’s stories and pain, but we also need to recognize when it is ours to own.

What role do you play in your pain?
What role do you play in someone else's pain?

Imagine if you could answer these questions in the healthiest of manners that would allow you to heal, to grow and be a presence on the journey for the person next to you who is suffering unknowingly.
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Embrace the gift in owning your pain.