We live in a culture of distraction and over stimulation, where it becomes all to easy to just flee from our afflictive emotions but unfortunately this prolongs and deepens the agony by opening up further the wound of alienation from ourselves and others. The path to healing is through the door of presence. Being present to ourselves, to others, and to God.
In his book, Into the Silent Land, B. Laird talks about entering into silence as a way of becoming a loving witness of our pain rather than a blind victim of it. This stillness or sitting with our pain can show us how the “suffering” we fear and want to flee from is not real, but our own fictional narrative created around the pain. The narrative is not me, it’s a mental movie that we are actually free to identify with or not. In this frame of reference we can be with the actual pain and not be so frightened. Pain does not reach the level of the soul or the deepest self yet is a very real experience in the body that can cause intense mental and emotional suffering. The contemplative awareness that distinguishes between real pain and fabricated mental suffering is key.
Medical writer Steven Levine observes:
“True healing happens when we go into our pain so deeply that we see it, not just as our pain, but everyone’s pain. It is immensely moving and supportive to discover that my pain is not private to me”
I would extend this idea more theologically to say that when we face our pain within our true self, which is Christ, the illusion that we are alone and separated falls away. The pain has woken us from our sleep.