My Old Best Friend, Pain
My old best friend named Pain was who I spent most of my evenings with, since I invited him to be with me when I was 13. Today, with appreciation for all he did for me, and more sadness than I would have expected, I let him go.
He left with a bit of a fuss and some profound releases, followed by a destabilizing healing crisis and then recalibration as the places he held in my body were re-filled with love. A love I call Grandma.
I invited Pain to be with me during a time when I'd decided no one understood my pain and many people in my life sought to make it worse. While my 13 year old self was actually correct about those beliefs, to some degree, spending the next 38 years with Pain as my best friend slowly became the most toxic relationship in my life. Towards the end, I began to experience him as a destructive force. It was in my growing resistance to him and demonization of him that he grew loud and hostile.
Over those 38 years I held myself to an incredibly high standard of service towards others — knowing that I was capable of loving everyone and deeply understanding their own wounds. Knowing that my calling, and therefore my duty, was to do precisely this. After all, I've always known how to love the way Grandma taught me to love and to feel pain the way Mom taught me to feel. Grandma poured love into everyone and everything, while Mom attuned to pain and could either help people release it or magnify it within them (were they a reflection of her own wounded self, as I unluckily seemed to be).
Grandma's love had a purity — it did not come from codependency, limerence, or trauma bonding — it was a rare example of actual unconditional love. A mirroring of God's love. And I inherently knew how to shine that way too. So that was my job, and after a day of doing a good job I'd retreat to my one-on-one time with my old friend who understood me, Pain. He didn't seem like a destructive force then, but as I healed and developed, things changed.
A dear friend suggested I listen to, rather than condemn, the demon inside me. Something I would have known to invite any friend or client of mine to do, but could not see to do for myself. My husband bore witness to my deep conversation with Pain, helping me locate all the places in my body I'd allowed him to take up residence. Head, throat, heart, shoulder, elbow, pancreas, stomach, ribcage, hip, big toe. Pain and I had become fully enmeshed. I writhed as I allowed Pain to leave — heading into the Cosmos, where he said he belonged now. I saw the expression on his face once before he escaped from view; kind and well-meaning, if misguided…
As the symptoms of a healing crisis set in (vomiting, shakiness, light-headedness, instability, fatigue), I wondered what would replace the emptiness I now felt in so many areas of my body. The vomiting seemed to be a continuing purge, at the physical level, of what Pain had damaged by staying with me for so long. I remembered that when we let go of something that no longer serves us we can replace it with love. I went into each place where Pain had been: head, throat, heart, shoulder, elbow, pancreas, stomach, ribcage, hip, big toe. And one at a time, gave that part love, as I looked into the eyes of my 13 year old self. The love became an entity of its own, to no surprise, named Grandma. I felt then, Grandma's Spirit visiting me from beyond the veil, saying, "Oh Erin Ruth, I am so sorry for the pain you felt which no one else knew. You can let your friend Pain be here with me now. And I can be within you."
We don't need a doctorate or a PhD to ease another's pain. I learned how to sit with someone and let them feel what they're carrying through the times when my mentor, Vida, sat with me. I sit with coaching clients and witness their suffering as they feel safe in the space I hold for them and feel their own pain — release what no longer helps them cope. My husband sat with me as I reconciled my lengthy relationship and the demise of it with my old friend Pain. All that's required is care, presence, and safety.
Thank you to Bryan, who reminded me to love rather than judge the ouchy parts of myself, to Jeff, who bore witness with genuine care, to Vida who reminds me of my Grandma's love, and to my growing self, who always seeks the higher truth (even when it hurts).
If you're ready to begin that conversation — with the parts of yourself that have been waiting to be heard — I'm here to sit with you.
