| The Emotional Pain Process Three Steps to Befriending Emotional Pain Lori MacKinder, M.A. 2008 *** Click on this link to experience and participate in the free Emotional Pain MP3 Down loadable Meditation *** Is your relationship ending? Are you hoping it will end? Do you fear it will end? Do you feel you need to make a relationship change? At the root cause of most relationship endings or relationship disharmony is human Emotional Pain. It is not that the pain itself causes the end or causes the disharmony, but instead, how you are with the pain: your pain and other’s pain, which causes breakdown. There is something unique about emotional pain. It seems to be the one emotion that we cover over most with other emotions such as anger or self-righteousness and the one emotion that we run from / hide from the most. Yet, emotional pain can be an amazing doorway into deep intimacy, connection, true Love and loyalty. Somehow most of us are programmed very young to avoid pain, (as our parents were and their parents were) and not accept the invitation, when it presents itself, to move deeper into connection with self and with others. This programming occurs in our subconscious and can be difficult to change without the proper tools. It is a three pronged approach to being with pain fully. These three prongs included: Responsibility – How do I respond to pain? Accountability – How am I accounting for my response to pain? Keeping Presence – Learning to open to pain and staying present with pain moment by moment. Responsibility Responsibility is really about how you respond. In this case, it is how you act in response to emotional pain. The goal here is to respond to pain with honesty, loving acceptance, and soft openness. The ideal is that you work at being with pain instead of directing pain. You work towards responding to pain with grounded openness and full acceptance. Many times, the unconscious reactor in you might defend against the pain before you even recognize that you are in pain. This ability to respond to pain in a mature adult and “responsible” way will come with time and practice (or this change can also be more immediate with the tools that re-write subconscious programming such as those of PSYCH-K). One way to create a change in your response to pain is to write out and imagine vividly yourself saying and being the exact way you would like to be when you encounter pain. Meditate on this accomplished vision of yourself. Imagine it were true in this moment as often as you can and as detailed as you can. This helps re-train the subconscious to do what you desire. Accountability Being accountable for pain is the next step. This means to account for it or to report about it. In other words, really looking closely at how you are with your own pain or the pain of others. This is a form of ruthless inquiry into self that is free of blame and criticism that brings awareness. There is no punishment involved or inherent in this step. It is simply an objective looking at and becoming aware of what actually goes on with you and pain. It is also helpful to stay accountable with your loved ones, letting them know that you may be ungrounded and off center when pain is present... requesting compassion and empathy. To support your new way of being with pain, add an accounting step to the meditation above as a second step. Keeping Presence Pain is soothed so quickly with simple, open, Presence. The key here is to completely drop defenses and make sure that you interpret pain as simply pain, no matter how it is being expressed: rockets, bombs or other forms of aggression or destructive devises. Listen deeply for fears of feeling pain or avoiding pain. Remember, pain is a doorway to intimacy with self and with others. Repeated Love in the face of challenge equals Loyalty. Check in with yourself about your ability to be loyal to yourself and to your process around moving deeply with pain. Create meditations that have you imagining you fully open and accepting of pain and in full presence with pain. Remember to breath! Emotional pain can cause restricted breathing. When it does, take a few deep breaths and relax into the experience of emotional pain. It can be a true teacher when we are present with it. Blessings on your journey into pain… It is a wild and wonderful ride! “You will find there are fleeting moments in our experiences with others when they appear suffused and illumined by the archetype of their own spirit. And then other periods come, perhaps quite long ones, during which their beings are as if clouded over. You can learn to say at such times: The spirit makes me strong. I think of my friend's archetype, which I once glimpsed. No deception, no outer appearance can ever tear this picture from me. Struggle ceaselessly to keep this vision. The struggle itself is loyalty. In the effort to be loyal in this sense, man comes close to his fellowman with the strength and in the attitude of a Guardian Angel." – Dr. Rudolf Steiner email: Lori@yourfullpotential.net phone: (808) 987-3928 | 
