Going Inside The Pain

By Jennifer Kelleher

I invite you to settle into your sacred space. By this, I mean that I invite you to land exactly where you are, in your body, on this breath, so that the mind can remember your sacredness.

Sometimes, when we run through life from one thing to another, the mind forgets. The truth is that you, beloved, are made of the divine, and you are never not perched upon sacred ground.

Remind your mind of this, again and again, and over time it will begin to believe and trust. You will walk through life in confident remembrance, and every step will be heart-felt and sacred, even when the ground is rugged.

But, what about when the ground does get rugged? How do we continue on, centered, balanced, and trusting? I truly believe that it is our difficulties that lead us to our greatness. While the light emotions feel “good,” it has definitely been my pains, struggles, and discomforts that cracked me open the most and showed me parts of myself that I didn’t know existed.

We may not be able to control every situation in our life, yet we can control how we respond to what comes up. I think that as a human being, it is natural to initially resist pain as it starts to creep in. Maybe we look the other way, cover it up, or numb it out, but these tactics are not a solution, rather procrastinations that only serve to make the pain more intense and longer-lived.

It is when we land, as the loving presence that we innately are, in the body, in the situation at hand, that we begin to heal. When we become conscious of our pain, we can choose to stay in the storm that created the pain, or to truly see the situation for what it is, be humbled, and make a change. With humility comes a beautiful softening that reveals our path. As we allow, the pain transforms into our beauty, wisdom, strength, love, and magnificence.

I invite you to think about a time when you got hit with something heavy in life. Do you know the feeling in these moments when your energy disperses? It’s like an energetic splat. These moments become opportunities for us to step into our greatness. The process of recollecting our pieces requires parts of us that may have gotten lost– strengths we didn’t know we have– and this contributes to our wholeness.

Loving attention alchemizes pain. Just like a mother to her child, when we are compassionate, kind, nurturing, and loving to the parts of us that suffer, we heal. The act of mothering ourselves not only gets rid of the pain, it also serves as an intimate self-bonding moment that helps us to gather and stand stable.

With that, I invite you to take a big, deep breath in, and let it go. Repeat that three more times. Place your hands over your heart and gently tilt your chin down. Go inside your heart and press out, into your hands. Be the bright light, animating a body and life. When you see others, look inside their eyes and recognize the light in them. Namaste.

We invite you to Ocean Bliss Yoga for daily classes and monthly specialty workshops. We are located on the third floor of the Belle Harbor Yacht Club (533 B. 126 St.), with parking available in the lot downstairs. Browse and sign up for our offerings at oceanblissyoga.net. Call me (Jen) with any questions at 917-318-1168.