Let go of pain and learn to love yourself

I am someone who has felt a lot of pain in my childhood and throughout my life. How this came to be does not matter, for I am not the only one who has felt pain. Like others, this pain has often debilitated my ability to be a fully functioning member of society.

I tell myself I’m kind and loving, but I see now I cannot haven’t been. I strongly hold expectations of myself and if I don’t achieve them I judge myself so critically that I take myself down so far - even in situations where I should feel joy. I tell myself I’m a friendly person yet I treat others to the same level of expectations and am just as critically judging - mentally, rather than verbally - of them.

I have held onto the stories of my pain for too long. For this I have felt more pain. Pain where pain hadn’t existed. Pain where love should be. Lots of pain. It became my pain - you don’t know how I feel because it’s MY PAIN!

In moments of sadness, my anxieties and bad habits become familiar. They feel comfortable, almost like I’m meant to feel that way.

“I am cursed and destined to live a life of pain.” I expect myself to live in pain and so it becomes.

But it doesn’t have to be any more.

As it is my pain, only I can be the one to heal myself.

I recently read a book about childhood trauma that gave me an insight into how to love and care for myself. How to heal myself from my pains. I want to talk about what I’ve learnt and how I want to share my progress and teach others how they can heal their own pains.

Life is a process of pain and joy - we all have felt pain in our lives. But we don’t take the time to process it fully, rather we ignore it and push it out of our minds. But this is not healthy as we store it in our bodies.

Whether you believe in spirituality or not, the connection between you mentally and you physically is the essence of your life on earth.

Take the time to pay attention your body.

So I ask please, for all of you out there, take 5 minutes to go through this exercise and allow yourself begin healing yourself:

Deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. When you feel you have a clear enough head to be honest with yourself, close your eyes. Just try to think of all the times throughout your life where you have felt pain. Maybe pain from fear or expectations, pain from disappointment. Maybe from abuse that was out of your control. The source doesn’t matter - just be honest for yourself. “I feel pain”.

Be mindful of the present moment how your body feels about it now. What part of the body, tight or loose, deep or swallow etc - use as many words to describe it as you can. Don’t judge yourself, just be truthful with yourself and allow your feelings to wonder free.

This was the first step to understanding my pain. To know recognise that pain is still held in my body. Only then could I begin working on letting it go for good.

I want to produce a series of posts on the topic here on Steemit because I think it can be useful to many of you out there. I will do a post every few days or so on mindfulness, freeing myself from expectations and some of the other steps I am taking towards healing myself and how they can help you too.

Please let me know if you would like this and please do ask any other questions.