Not so long ago, when I was on my way to the office I met with an accident and got my left ankle injured, little did I know that a moment like this will change my life forever. The memory of watching myself lying helpless on the ground, staring at my dangling feet, and concluding mentally being physically disabled for life is something so heart-wrenching that the strong sensations in the body still return like the swell of chilling pain. But now this painful event of my life instead of throwing me back on the ground gives me the strength to stand strong and firm.
Strange, right? Have you ever experienced a moment like this in your life? It doesnβt have to be an incident like mine, it can be an experience (positive or negative) that changes our perspective and alters the way we see ourselves and the world.
Well, it did happen for me.
In the beginning, I interpreted the event as something that happened to punish me and I would get into a series of modes to avoid the pain. I immediately went into the βdenial modeβ to deal with pain. I would suppress the pain by eating unhealthy food and shutting down the inner voice screaming for attention. I then went to βfixer modeβ of finding solutions to heal it externally through medication, further shutting down the voice screaming for love. I then went into the βnon-caring modeβ of getting engaged into swiping my phone endlessly and watching content that help me sedate my pain for hours, further choking the voice screaming for care. This temporary relief process didnβt help me at all, instead became an endless battle between my body and mind.
After spending some good quality time with myself, I realized that it was not the pain but fears demanding my love, attention, and care. The deep-rooted fears and the unconscious emotions of the past wanted me to reflect on and recreate my life.
Things started changing when I broke the chain of the modes and chose to tune in to the pain. Tuning into the pain helped me connect with myself and break the shackles of fear to discover freedom. In that moment of freedom, I became real, pure, and honest with my situation and was open to change. There was no more running from the truth but accepting the situation and taking it as my wakeup call knowing life is not infinite and I must cherish it the most.
To me now every physical or emotional pain is a good opportunity to tune in to the pain, and access freedom to change. Because the only thing that is constant in life is change, and change will either find you or you will have create it.
