I had a migraine today. I very rarely get migraines. In fact, I very rarely get headaches. I can handle a lot of pain (grapefruit-sized ovarian cyst pain) –but not head-oriented pain. Head pain makes it difficult to function and then I’m a jerk to myself because I am not functioning how I’d like. 

I become consumed with pain. Everything fucking hurts. Sound hurts. Light hurts. Moving hurts. Thinking hurts. Migraine pain also makes sleeping difficult. It feels cosmically unfair to have to be this uncomfortable and not be able to lose consciousness voluntarily into the beautiful time travel of sleep. So, I became trapped in a loop of increasing pain and self-loathing. My mind did its usual missing-work guilt spiral. Wandering through the shame of potentially disappointing my coworkers, I’m frustrated and annoyed that my body—my body–is not doing what I want, how I want, when I want. (As if my body has ever actually worked like that?) 

However, the more energy and focus I put into thinking, planning, and criticizing—the worse the pain got. The only power I had was the ability to make things worse for myself. This was a message from my body. And for once, I actually listened. 

My human body was expressing to me— “No. Nope. No. Carly. Listen. NO. I love you, you beautiful sweet thing. But no. Not today. You are human. You are made of nature. You are the result of so many insane and chaotic elements, some you can affect and control, but so, so, so many more you cannot. You can’t think this away. You are in pain, thinking isn’t working–so…try again.”

A spiritual clarity arises from pain when you allow it. Granted, spiritual clarity doesn’t magically make pain enjoyable. However, by willingly surrendering the illusion I have any control stops me from making this situation worse for myself. That’s how suffering forces us to grow as people. We recognize the value of allowing. By learning to accept our current reality, we can move forward from this present moment based on those circumstances.

In moments of intense physical or emotional pain, such as grief, loss, panic attacks or severe depressive episodes, our egos like to step in, and attempt to get things ‘back on track’ because feeling awful clearly wasn’t part of the plan. As a society we’ve cultivated our sense of worth based on productivity. We’re conditioned to work through the pain–and do what needs to be done. Within ourselves we treat pain as our own fault, our own weakness, our own personal failing. Ignoring the reality of pain denies our own humanity to our own collective detriment in a way that only benefits systems of oppression.  By denying our pain, we only exacerbate it. When we judge or admonish ourselves for not meeting our (likely) unrealistic standards of how we’ve conditioned ourselves to think we should act or feel, we self-sabotage by bringing more suffering to already difficult circumstances.

Sometimes, what needs to be done is nothing. The only way is through. Therefore, I willingly embraced something I hate–not thinking. I moved my focus and intention to my breath. One breath and one moment at a time. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I ‘breathed into the discomfort’ and I 100% know how lame that sounds. Breathing into the discomfort doesn’t make it go away, but it prevents the additional self-inflicted pain. I moved focus to my body and its weight against the bed. My attention on my body, my mind on my breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Until eventually, my body relaxed, my medication set in, and sleep arrived.

I woke up feeling a lot better, with another reminder of how gentle presence, instead of force, is the way through pain.