FROM SUFFERING
SPIRITUAL BALANCE
“Man suffers most from the suffering he fears, but (which) never appears, therefore he suffers more than God meant him to suffer.”
Dutch proverb
My pain manifests itself in many forms—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Today I know the difference between pain and suffering. Chronic pain is part of my physical life, while emotional, mental, and spiritual pain can become suffering if I allow myself to dwell in them.
Emotional, mental, and spiritual pains are real, just as real as the chronic pain I feel in my body. I can take positive actions to lessen or rid myself of chronic physical pain, but if I wallow or dwell in my emotional, mental, and spiritual pain, then suffering is the result.
How to handle my suffering? The same way I handle my chronic physical pain: healthy habits and reaching out to others—including my higher power, my sponsor, my counselor, my fellowship. I alleviate my suffering with balance in my life; I don’t become too focused on myself. I keep a healthy balance between self and others, and my suffering diminishes.
For today, just today, I see my pain for what it is and I see my emotions for what they are. I strive to separate the two and to deal with each separately.
{ MARCH }
LOVE
RELATIONSHIPS
“Love, when truly felt and practiced, seldom brings our needs in conflict with the needs of our loved ones. In love, the importance of mutual needs is greater than individual needs. On the rare occasion when mutual and individual needs conflict, being loving requires that we put our loved one’s interests ahead of our own. In doing so, we find that our mutual good is far more important and fulfilling than our individual desires.”
Of Character: Building Assets in Recovery
Love is my quest for the best and highest good. The idea of putting another person’s needs ahead of my own may sound codependent. However, what I find during this surrender is that what I was holding onto and perceiving as my own need was not real. In surrendering to the need of another person I discover that acting on the spiritual principles of love and kindness does not put me in conflict with myself. I believe that the best and highest good for another person cannot possibly be harmful to me. My task in recovery is to discover that best and highest good. When there is conflict, there is a lack of understanding of what that good is.
Love is my quest, and seeking through prayer, meditation, and communication to discover, to reveal, and to act in the best and highest good for myself and others, transcending all conflict of needs, both real and perceived.
SELF-CARE
PHYSICAL BALANCE
“Well-ordered self-love is right and natural.”
Thomas Aquinas
“If one is good, two must be better.” That’s the way I thought in active addiction. Today I know that too much of even a good thing isn’t always good for me. The book Pain Recovery taught me that. For example, embarking on a too-vigorous course of exercise that might result in injury; losing weight by starving myself; engaging in myriad activities that I haven’t tried before, such as acupuncture, massage, physical therapy, or chiropractic, without a developing a consistent plan; or spending money and time on treatments and medications in excess of what’s recommended or right for me are examples of the kinds of behavior I engaged in during my active addiction and from which I am now in recovery. I want to recover—now! So shouldn’t I do everything possible to make that happen, now?
Maybe not, or at least not all at once. Caring for myself and showing myself healthy self-love means taking things easy and letting my higher power do those things for me that I cannot do for myself. I follow the steps of my program, and do what is necessary for good health. I eat healthy foods, sleep and rest when I can, and I get some exercise. I also work my program of recovery, praying and meditating and being of service, and letting my higher power do the rest.
Taking care of myself today means doing what I see others in pain recovery doing successfully: eating, sleeping, exercising, praying, and meditating. I ask my higher power to help me with the rest, and I have faith that my request will be answered.
COURAGE
MENTAL BALANCE
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear— not absence of fear.”
Mark Twain
In the Serenity Prayer I ask for courage. But what does courage really mean? It’s not the absence of fear; I’ve learned that. Courage in pain recovery, as in all of life, is doing the right thing in spite of fear. I apply courage in all four points of balance. In relation to my thoughts, mental courage is twofold: it is the courage to ignore negative thinking, and it is the ability to think of something new and different, or in a new way.
I practice courage on a mental level by replacing negative, “what’s the use” thoughts with the affirmations, thoughts, and ideas of recovery. I practice having positive thoughts. I practice thinking healthy thoughts. I practice replacing negative ideas with positive ones, and then I put those ideas into action by doing what must be done regardless of what I think, what I fear, how I feel.
This is what it means to have courage, and this is how I change the things that I can. I can change what I do. I can change what I think. In changing what I think and what I do, I can change the way I feel.
I might not ever be able to remove my chronic pain, but I can change my thinking about my pain. In changing my thinking, I change my actions. I practice courage in all points of balance and I dare to think differently.
SELF-PITY
EMOTIONAL BALANCE
“Self-pity is defined as excessive, self-absorbed unhappiness over one’s own troubles. It is the emotional state of feeling sorry for myself, sometimes in exaggerated ways. Self-pity is often a characteristic of chronic pain and addiction—after all, these troubles are very real. But the fact that self-pity often results from significant problems does not make it any less destructive in terms of its impact on emotional balance. When I’m feeling self-pity, I’m almost exclusively focused on what is wrong and not working in my life.”
Adapted from Pain Recovery: How to Find Balance and Reduce Suffering from Chronic Pain
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