There's Always A Choice

As I have, over the past nine years, sought relief from chronic pain (migraine), I've learned that it's easy to unconsciously exacerbate one's pain. And since I'm making a fresh start with this blog, I want to re-examine that in the larger context of life's pain.

I know. It sounds depressing, doesn't it? Yippeeeee, let's talk about how full of pain life is! Not what you want to do during an afternoon's perusal of the internet. But there are a couple of distinctions I'd like to make.

First, I don't want to dwell on life's pain. Let's just acknowledge it's there, be realistic about it. If we can simply nod and say, yep, life's full of pain, then move on to the next point, we're setting the stage for deeper healing. We're making room for healing around what's hurting us, like the relationship that's ending, or the job recently lost, the new job not yet found, or a doctor's diagnosis, a friend's disease, or our physical pain.

Second, I've come to understand pain as being different from suffering. Pain is a migraine. Suffering is being upset because I have to cancel yet another visit with a friend. Pain is leaving a long term relationship. Suffering is  guilt and blame and anger. I think of suffering as being what we layer over pain.

Life's pain is inevitable. Suffering is our choice.

Once I learned that, Buddhism's Four Noble Truths made a lot more sense to me. This migraine is inevitable, and I can choose not to make it worse by getting mad about it, or feeling sorry for myself.

In my next post, I'll spend more time with the Four Noble Truths.

You can comment below through GooglePlus, or email me at carold.marsh@gmail.com.

Starting Fresh

I have changed the title and description of my blog.

Used to be: Chronic Pain and Spirituality / How the life of the spirit and chronic pain interact

I changed them in order to expand the purpose of this blog. I began posting in 2010 and kept at it fairly steadily until last October, when I stopped altogether. Not only was school taking a lot of time (understatement), but I was again displeased with the repetitive nature of my posts. My main topic was how spiritual practices can enhance pain management skills, and how pain management informs spiritual practices. After three years, I was coming up with little that was fresh, mostly linking back to previous posts.

This new iteration will be about learning to live a circumscribed life without binding one's spirit. My life is bound by chronic pain, but there are realities that limit other lives -- illness, disability, past trauma, unemployment, and addictions, for example. I want to explore more widely how and why we can try to live joyfully despite such restrictions.

How do we free our spirits within a life that seems to thwart our will at every turn? What have ages-old spiritualities and religions to teach us about that freedom? What is happening in recent research in neurology and behavioral sciences? I'd like to share stories of people searching for freedom in their otherwise circumscribed lives, what they have learned, how they have struggled. 

I'll begin in a few days with a series of posts exploring Buddhism's Eightfold Path.

I'd love to hear from you. Please contact me at carold.marsh@gmail.com or through GooglePlus.