YOUR PAIN IS A BLESSING

image with thanks via Iraj Jahanshahi

The courtesy when in pain is to submit and try to understand it.  You can take a quick fix to suppress it or find an escape to distract yourself from it and that can work for a while.  But, the real remedy for chronic pain lies in acknowledging it, being curious about it and trying to understand where it is coming from and what it is saying to you so you can cure it.

Pain is telling you:

*Stop whatever it is you are doing;
*Pay attention here!;
*Understand what is going on so you can find a cure.

If your body didn't hurt when it was on fire, you could be burnt to a crisp by a fire while you slept.  It is the same with any other kind of pain, emotional or mental.  If you didn't hurt you would not do anything to save yourself from further damage and destruction.

Pain is not your enemy; it is your ally. It is telling you pay attention, do something -- something else, something new.  

If you were never hurt and confused, if you were never lost and afraid, you would never change.  

You know how stubborn you are, how compulsive, how conditioned, how attached to the things, activities and people you love. 

You know you would never change unless you were forced to.  Unless the pain were so intense that your usual distractions and addictions stopped working.

And that is what your pain is here to do - whether physical, mental, or emotional  - it's here to force you to change.

Accept it and work with it, make it your ally.  And surely the Merciful One will reveal to you the immense blessing in it.  Because it is a blessing.  

I know it hurts.

But it is a blessing.

Everything is encompassed in and comes from the Beloved's Mercy.

And Allah knows best.

image with thanks via Iraj Jahanshahi