When journeying through the maze of Lyme disease, it is as if you are journeying through innumerable diseases all at once -MS, A.L.S., depression, anxiety, A.D.H.D., schizophrenia, chronic fatigue syndrome, arthritis, fibromyalgia, Parkinson’s disease, Malaria, bipolar disorder and the list goes on and on. I can imagine that having only one of those illnesses would give life to excessive negative thoughts, to uncomfortable feelings during the moments when the rest of the world falls asleep and you lie in darkness waiting, begging with all your might to follow. After three years, I finally understand how to deal with this -not how to get rid of it or prevent it from happening, but how to experience the pain without adding more mind made suffering to the fire while simultaneously managing to walk away from these moments of soul trembling darkness having gained far more than I lost. For me, this is what I have found to be true. This is what I now know to be my truth. This is my true relationship with pain, the one I was always meant to have with it:
Whenever you feel a negative emotion, embrace its presence and enter it both fully and willingly. Anything you try to avoid or resist will only come back stronger, so it makes little sense to do otherwise. Instead of thinking about how bad the emotion is making you feel, and multiplying the amount of painful thoughts rapidly spreading through your mind like the black plague , redirect your dialogue with the experience by turning and asking the emotion what it has to teach you. Talk with it, not about it. Explore it, do not become it. Every emotion houses hidden secrets and deep truths, and is nothing more than the vehicle offering you the opportunity to unveil the doors of perception leading to those easily missed yet life changing messages they contain.
This is true in regards to even the most painful of emotions -especially the most painful ones. When a negative feeling arises, use it. Keep it. Feel it. Become it. Inhale it. Feel it in your heart, lungs, and veins. Pay close attention as it turns your vessels to ice sickles, rest in the coldness without placing judgment towards it until it passes, and then release it as with an exhale of desert breeze. Melt it and release it back into the duality of the universe where it belongs, keeping only the message and strength it gave you. If the pain still has more to teach you, trust it will come back to you. Do not hold on to it, nor resist it. Let it visit when it must and welcome its arrival, perceiving it as an opportunity for inner growth.
When negative thoughts threaten to obliterate you to ground zero, engage with them. Talk to them, rather than about them which only feeds your pain body and multiplies your suffering.
