One of my favorite questions to ask my Clients is
What’s it Like in There?
In other words,
What’s Coming Up?
What’s it Like in There? What’s Coming Up?
“Most people view pain as an enemy. Yet…it forces us to pay attention to threats against our bodies. Without it, heart attacks, strokes, ruptured appendixes, and stomach ulcers would all occur without any warning.”
Dr. Paul Brand worked around the world particularly with the “untouchable” cast of India. These people were known as outcasts, people with leprosy. Those facing leprosy don’t necessarily feel the pain. We’ve learned now that when the sensory nerves are damaged, they cannot register pain. Consider the context with the above quote from the surgeon, Dr. Brand. It’s inspiring to see the compassion of just one person willing to engage the “untouchables” of the time and their unfelt, unknown pain.
The vacant or numbing effect can hurt our ability to feel the pain and therefore to actually treat the pain. It may sound nice not to feel the pain, however the result would often lead to blindness and sudden amputation due to the failure to recognize the necessary pain. There is often a greater cost of pain left untreated.
In my line of work there is no clearer indicator to what brings people in seeking additional help than the pain itself.
What do we do with our pain?
It seems today we run, hide, deflect and suppress the pain without actually treating the pain. Many people minimize the pain and some make a lot of money and speak from a place of authority about pain and still do not necessarily help treat the pain.
Dr. Paul Brand was no doubt changed by his experiences with the people facing leprosy and he eventually began referring to pain as the gift of pain, something he wished his patients and those in need could feel and know.
Why? This allows us to see more clearly what it’s like inside and what’s coming up.
What Are We Doing with the Pain?
By the time I meet with clients there is the pain of what happened in life. Together we learn more by asking these two questions, “What’s it Like in There and What’s Coming Up for You?” These are questions we can ask ourselves and with compassion and curiosity, learn more clearly what has been stored within us.
Why? Always, to make room for Hope and Healing.
We are mindful of ways others with best of intentions may have unknowingly protected the pain, stroked something that no longer fits and possibly prevented healing and transformation when we sensed within ourselves that something was causing a lot of pain. It’s no wonder we feel stuck and like things will never change! We can surround ourselves with people that look, think and act like the very people that inflicted the pain to begin with. With that said, we can choose what to do with the pain. Blame and shame will not free us of what ails us.
“Love without truth is a lie, but truth without love is a weapon.”
A Word to the Wise: Before there is conversation around reconciliation, disconnection and separation, boundaries, and forced apologies I recommend something we think and speak little about… Compassion. Also, stop taking sides! When there is struggle there is shared pain. Coming to one’s rescue and isolating another can lead to devastating results for the one that now feels isolated, shunned and ostracized from the greater community. This is a message to well intentioned leaders, family and friends. Please stop taking sides.
Why does anyone hurt someone? Some would say to make them feel like they do. What people in pain are looking for is often someone to see what they see and to feel what they feel.
WE need Compassion.
“The Cure for Pain is in the Pain.”
I Believe Each of us Have the Equal Right to Heal and to Grow.
And, I Believe Compassion is Key!
Compassion: The Cure to Pain
I’m seeing more clearly the pain. Cycles of Fear on regular 24-hour display, anxiety of ages both young and old and generations passing things down with every intention to do the very best we know how to.
It’s heartbreaking, really.
Why so much division?
I have found it’s convenient to judge others when we ourselves don’t struggle with what we see from people. Depression, addiction, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, affairs, abuse and trauma of many varieties, loss of all kinds, compulsive thinking….
There is a lot of pain.
And, therefore a great need for Compassion.
I Believe Compassion is the Cure to Pain.
According to THIS Article, Compassion literally means “to suffer together. Among emotion researchers, it is defined as the feeling that arises when you are confronted with another’s suffering and feel motivated to relieve that suffering.”
HERE, in another Article, “Compassion involves feeling another person's pain and wanting to take steps to help relieve their suffering. The word compassion itself derives from Latin and means "to suffer together."
To suffer together.
Loving Ourselves and Others in pain with Compassion
People in my Life are in Pain, What Can I Do?
We can start by speaking with kindness. The above article provides a few additional suggestions including:
Listen carefully and without judgment
Be happy for someone else's success
Encourage other people
Express gratitude and appreciation
Apologize when you've made a mistake
Forgive people for making mistakes
We have the opportunity before us right here and now to hold the light of Compassion to Ourselves - our past including mistakes, errors, failures, wrongdoings, disapproval, and any talk of missing the mark. We are mindful to remember that blame and shame are disempowering and leave us in an endless loop when we can in fact outgrow what no longer serves us! This IS how we Learn.
This is where we can love people as ourselves with great Compassion.
“A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true.”
Can You Begin by Asking Yourself the Question Today,
What’s it like in Here?
What is Coming Up for Me?
We hurt, we feel pain. It leads us to react in ways we’re often not proud of and do so often in isolation or hiding. This leads in increased risky behaviors, liability in the workplace and can effect an entire community. Rather than immediately doing what we have been trained to do with hiding, trying to fix ourselves or others, protect the pain…and the list goes on with all of the armor we’ve put on what about Compassion?
There IS another way.
But, we look, believe, vote and identify differently. This is strange, but I somehow Love You! And, you Love me?
Pain in response to Compassion can help make room for hope and healing. We can learn to live life as a playground and not a danger zone!
I love to see this transformation in my clients! When all that was put on a person - the rejection and loneliness, confusion and sadness that resulted in shame, a closed heart, disgust, self-hatred, constant comparison…meet Compassion.
I can attest to seeing how Love in Compassion can in fact cover a multitude of sins. I’ve seen people feeling seen, known and loved by way of compassion and the result be a transformed softened heart completely overcome by love. Replace fighting with utter Compassion and we can feel the change! With compassion I speak up and recognize the division that has become so common among us. The division and separateness leaves people feeling shamed, isolated and in utter separateness, a living hell. Compassion is Hope and can live well in Faith, Politics, Family, Clubs, and Gatherings of all kinds. We are the Collective and we have the power to love people in pain with great compassion!
Question: What if We Opened our Hearts to Receive Compassion?
Will our protective parts keep our pain stored deep down? Will we continue to hate? Will hurt people continue to hurt people?
Compassion frees us to experience a deep calm and a peace that surpasses understanding. We can begin again today, be the change and let Love lead with Compassion.
What’s coming up? Start within Yourself, Let Love Lead with Compassion and Imagine - Dream with Great Faith what is Possible with moving towards the pain with Compassion.
Humans Being…Putting This Into Practice
Please allow me the opportunity to invite you to respond to your own pain with pointed Compassion.
Sit comfortably, relax your body, take your hand and apply with comfortable pressure to your body around your shoulder area. Close your eyes and breathe.
This place is your internal environment that you can access. It’s the place from which we spent the first 9 months of development and the place we return each night as we relax into sleep. Great mysteries of prayer, meditation and healing come from this internal place.
From this place we can see more clearly that we have come to believe we need something outside of us to be okay inside. There is the world and there is the Home. Greater is one day in these courts and in this home than 1,000 elsewhere. This has been referred to as the lonely place, a refuge in the time of storm.
It is in this home that we can simply be as we are and speak the words we have longed to hear,
“I’m here for you, you are not alone and I am proud of you. I see you, I know, I understand.”
What have you longed to receive from others by way of compassion? We have sought outside validation many of us for a long time. I agree that YOU are the person you have been looking for. You need to look no further. Family, community, groups and gatherings are vital to provision and the village that helps raise a generation AND YOU are the person you have been looking for.
We can be very hard on ourselves expecting perfection, meeting others expectations and living up to expectations of our own. When we sense inconsistency and unpredictability we remember that learning, healing and development are a process, not a destination.
The return to this place is the way we remember the safe place we have each day no matter the circumstance. I invite you to simply relax and release, stop trying to control anything outside of yourself and simply be still and know. Today we can create moments to sit with ourselves consciously and follow the pain with Compassion, not run from it. No matter what is happening outside of us we are free to simply be as we are and respond within ourselves with stillness.
Simply being and breathing in this moment is enough.
Choose to focus on simply being here and now, choose to mindfully slow it all down. In this place within there is no hurry. Drop all need to fight, hide, run, be on time or make anything happen. In this space I can breathe and simply be,
“It’s okay, you are cared about and loved.”
In this space I am safe and secure…just breathe and simply be. When I sense pain I can move towards the pain knowing something is signaling me to pay attention and simply respond with compassion,
“I am wonderfully made. Thank you for the gift of pain.
I choose to return to this place of comfort.”
Compassion: The Cure to Pain.
Thank you to the clients willing to engage these practices and to courageously see for themselves there is more than meets the eye.
If you or someone you know is interested and open to engaging this process to move towards the pain with Compassion please see the contact information below. There will be a group running in the Fall and Spring to invite people to come together for a Collective time of Solitude. Your body is a temple to something far more valuable than anything we can ask or imagine. Give yourself the opportunity to heal from the inside out.
Thank you for being a bridge to those in need and for choosing to share Good News with the people in Your Life. Thank You for your support in the Partnership of Helping People!
We Make Room for Hope and Healing!
In this scene, Jesus shows compassion to a man with leprosy, who is seen as an outcast. Instead of avoiding him, Jesus steps closer to help the person in pain.
Josh Neuer is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Greenville, SC. Josh’s Life’s Work is to Make Room for Hope and Healing. Josh is Passionate about Empowering Meaningful Change in People with Counseling, Coaching and Consulting. He is the founder of Joshua Neuer, LLC, a committed husband and father, and is absolutely crazy about relationships!
Josh Neuer, Licensed Professional Counselor, Coach and Consultant
Founder, Joshua Neuer, LLC Counseling
1326 Haywood Road Suite 202 Greenville, SC 29615
864 660-3844 | Josh@JoshNeuer.com
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