The Gift Of Pain
In this post I give a detailed account of my recent dark night of the soul and a resolution. I share these honest and vivid accounts to help those of you going through a very challenging experience something to relate to and learn from.
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A searing pain began developing in my head. It felt as if electrical wiring was burning through the insides of my skull. It was a driving, deep pain that forced me into surrender.
From the onset I intuited that this was going to be a long lasting pain that was going to take me to my edge.
I went directly to my yoga mat to fully be with what was developing within my being. Soon after laying in savasana and allowing the energy behind the pain to move I felt a sharp coldness in my body and my mouth tasted like I had been sucking on a penny.
My head began pulsating and the electrical searing pain started to concentrate in my temples. The heat in my head began feeling like a smoldering hot fire that refused to lessen in intensity. I became nauseous and on the verge of throwing up.
My nerves were going crazy, resulting in all sorts of bizarre and painful symptoms. I had been here before, but I had never expected to be back. I remember the feelings of hopelessness and quiet desperation. It felt like these symptoms and my condition was going to be a permanent situation and the thought of the pain lifting seemed remote.
Initially, I felt as if some sort of mistake had been made. I thought, “this shouldn’t be happening! What did I do?”
More importantly, I kept asking myself and God, “how can I get rid of this pain?!”
I felt like the kundalini was going completely haywire in my brain. I thought for sure some wires had been crossed and that I was fucked. What I was experiencing didn’t feel healing in the least.
Day after day I would spend most of my time lying on my back while letting the energy move, praying that it would disintegrate.
But day after day the pain persisted. There was a constant vibration of pain in my skull that varied in severity, yet was my ever present companion. Then I began to feel the crawling electric sensations all over my body that I hadn’t felt since this all began in Midland, Texas. I just had this powerful sensation of unease all over my body. I felt such a gross sensation permeating my entire being and there was no escaping it.
Four days into this mini dark night of the soul I began to break. I felt utterly trapped and I wasn’t able to deal with the pain any longer. Why wouldn’t this pain dissolve? This just wasn’t fair. Was this actually permanent? How do I have such bad karma?! These were the thoughts flooding my mind at the time.
Darkness was upon me and within me. When I wasn’t thinking about my pain and why is was there I was being flooded by old and buried subconscious thoughts that were extremely dark, violent and disgusting in their nature. These thoughts must have been surfacing from DEEP within my primal body.
They were literally screaming at me as they were making their way out of my consciousness. The violent intensity of the process shook me to my core.
My first reaction to these horrific thoughts was to be repulsed by them and to attempt to turn away. But soon after I realized that sometimes overwhelming head pain/pressure is due to the suppression of thoughts that we don’t want to think. I once again realized that trying to control my mind was only going to add to the pain so I began to observe all of the unconscious and suppressed/repressed thoughts that were coming up from my shadow with a painful curiosity.
Once I let myself see the thoughts I began to feel the energy behind them. I felt such intense rage, anger and abandonment. I had this deep feeling of being unloved and unlovable.
In my darkest moments I felt abandoned by everyone. I felt abandoned by God, my Higher Self, by Life itself.
The pain was all consuming and incapacitating. All creative pursuits were put on hold and socializing felt next to impossible. The only thing that seemed to reduce my suffering of the pain was lying down and completely surrendering. My head was still throbbing but at least I wasn’t adding resistance to the pain.
Finally on the 5th or 6th day of persistent and gut wrenching pain I completely broke down. I cried hard, really hard. I felt like a victim to the energy and pain within. I screamed awful things into my pillows. I laid in the fetal position resigned to a fate of pain and suffering for eternity. The shock and despair of my conditions had brought me to my knees.
I crawled over to my yoga mat and said the following prayer:
God, I am willing to suffer infinitely for You. If it is your Will that I suffer this pain for eternity, than I can do this for You. I can do this for the Collective. My preference is for the pain to subside and to be free from this suffering so that I can be a vessel for your Love and Grace. But even so, I am willing to walk any path you have chosen for me, even if it is the most painful path imaginable. Because I know that even the most painful path one could imagine is still filled with you Grace.”
A couple of minutes after this prayer I had an impulse to do a few asanas (yoga poses). In the middle of Bow Pose, I could feel a popping/releasing sensation in the back of my neck.
My heart instantly started pounding and this lighter and good feeling energy began moving through my entire body. The energy was opening me up and creating this wonderful spacious feeling within my being. For the first time in days I didn’t feel weighed down and dense. I went to sleep that night able to take full deep breaths for the first time since the pain had commenced. I was hugging myself and whispering, “thank you, thank you” as I fell asleep.
The pain still remained, but for the first time in days I knew that I wasn’t alone and that everything was going to be okay.
Two days following the magical reconnection with Source I found myself flabbergasted by the resilience and staying power of the pain. It just refused to lift and kept burning away inside my skull with a determined intensity.
At one point as I was on my knees in desperation again I stumbled into a deep realization while sharing my experiences with my closest confidant. I told her, “This whole thing was meant to happen. I am supposed to be here feeling this pain and this is just part of the process.” As I said those words wave after wave of goosebumps came surging down into me. FINALLY I had spoken the Truth. Those were the first words of Truth about my situation that I had uttered since the searing pain had manifested. I had reunited with God and the Truth. Yet the pain refused to abate.
A couple nights later as the pain was dragging on I found myself sinking into an intensely low state that scared me a little bit. Darkness was overcoming me. I braced myself and prepared for a long night.
I looked up with tears in my eyes and practically shouted, “did I seriously choose this? I chose to come down here and boil?!?!” Once again wave after wave of reassuring and healing energy descended into me giving me goose bumps. This time taking the worst of the pain away and giving me enough space to fall asleep.
I had come to the realization that I was experiencing exactly what I was supposed to be experiencing and that the pain I was feeling wasn’t some sort of mistake. But why I was I here? Why was I experiencing this tremendous pain?
RESOLUTION:
Finally about 10 days in to living with the pain I came to a profound realization while listening to this video by Matt Kahn.
As I was lying on my back opening to the searing pain in my skull Matt Kahn spoke these words:
“The spiritual journey is actually about discovering what in you is always beyond your personal desires. Life’s only going to dismantle your will and make it seem like you have no choice because the only choice you need is choosing to be where you’re at. And the more you choose to be where you’re at, the more you lose sight of where you think you need to be, and all the feelings you think that are going to be over there, are going to start showing up here, when we fully arrive.”
When I heard these words something inside of me clicked on a profound level. I said out loud to myself, “Oh my God I haven’t been choosing to be here at all. I’ve been everywhere but here.”
I shuddered at this shocking truth while wave after wave after wave of intensely healing and soothing energy descended into me once again. This time I could literally feel the searing pain in my skull melt away and dissolve. I finally got it. I had been avoiding life. I hadn’t been choosing to be where I was. My mind and essence had been elsewhere for the past month. I hadn’t been showing up for life.
The pain was matching the degree to which I was disassociating with the present moment. Pain was the only thing that could bring me to the present moment. The moment I fully arrived and chose to be here with all of my essence the pain began to dissipate. I will tell you, when you experiencing excruciating pain, you are forced to be exactly where you are, even though you desperately don’t want to be where you are.
I had been delaying my growth by always trying to change my reality instead of transforming where I was with my light. I had been putting off being the person I know I am meant to be until I got to such and such location with such and such career. Life had closed in on me and there was nowhere else to go but inward. My fears had deluded me once again.
The last thing I want to stress to anyone going through a Kundalini/Spiritual Awakening and something that I cannot communicate strongly enough to you, is this:
When you are choosing not to be where you are you are going to create a feeling of displacement within yourself. The first symptom of displacement is a closed root chakra. When our root chakra closes we don’t feel safe within. Our subconscious will manifest this unsafe feeling through our ego and all types of symptoms, illnesses, accidents and psychosomatic creations may result. When we choose to be here our root chakra stays open and we find the safety that is always within us. Surrender and choose to be where you’re at. Initially, Spirit governs ALL. You may ask, well if Spirit governs all, what choice to I have? The only choice you need is CHOOSING TO BE HERE.
One thing I want to mention is the trauma hangover from a very painful stretch of time on this awakening. It is normal to be a little unsure of life after dealing with so much pain and suffering. For awhile the mind will be overly fearful and sensitive due to what it has just experienced. It is a survival machine with a flight or fight nervous system after all. Be gentle with it and try to stay as relaxed as possible if you are going through something traumatic. Try to not add anymore trauma to an already stressed mind if you can help it. Psychologically it may take some time to recover. Stay relaxed, open you body and don’t believe your thoughts if they are fear based.
““Choosing to be here determines your spectrum of happiness. How do you actually cultivate happiness within? Choosing to be here. Depression is what it’s like when you are where you haven’t chosen to be. The minute you choose to be exactly where you’re at, depression becomes solitude.””
