The Air After Pain

Ok this post will be a bit long because it's part of a book I've been reading. The book is called The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo. When I read this part, it immediately was familiar to me towards how I react with anxiety. His battle was with cancer and his stories in this book are very enlightening and deep in meaning but simple to read and understand.

"Live for the air after the pain and there will be no reason to run."

Hippocrates said that pleasure is the absence of pain. Anyone who has ever suffered knows this is a deep truth. When I fell into the gauntlet of tests that awaited afther the pronoucement that I had cancer, I was terrified of being in pain. I introduced myself to every physician and nurse as Mark put-me-out Nepo. But with every procedure, there was some medical reason why I had to be awake. I came to realize that there was nowhere to run.

Once I accepted this, which took some time, I understood that what was most terrifying about my pain was the prospect that it would never end, that life would somehow freeze in whatever moment of discomfort I came upon. The terror gainred its power from not being able to imagine life beyond pain.

The breakthrough moment for me came the day I had to have yet anopther bone marrow sampling. For some reason, these were the worst for me. But with the appearance that day of some deeper grace, I suddenly saw it differently. I recognized thyat this very uncomfortable procedure lasted at most 40 - 50 seconds and I was arranging my entire life being in anticipation and avoidance of those 50 seconds.

The first time I realized I had a choice. The pain of those 50 seconds would be the same, but I could ground myself, including my fear, in the real fact that my life would resume after those 50 seconds. There would be light in the air, once again after the pain. For the first time, I felt in my soul that I was larger than my pain. This empowered me.

So many times, in our despair, we see our pain as something that will never end. In fact, this often defines our moments of despair; when we believe that our pain contains the rest of us. In contrast, there is this sense of peace to work towards: the belief that our life contains our pain.



Ok end of story. I found much truth to these words and can see how much of my life is lived in avoidance and fear. I won't say it will be easy to realize this when I am in the moment of fear but it certainly has given me something to think of!