My mother is still in intense pain since this week’s hop surgery. This concern’s me since the hospital will only allow her to stay until monday and my father is committed to bringing her home instead of taking her to a skilled nursing facility for a two week period of rehabilitation. I agree nursing homes are notoriously horrible, particularly here in Texas, so we sure do have a dilemma on our hands. It took three stout women and a huge man just to get her from a chair to her bed yesterday afternoon to her bed yesterday afternoon so I’m dreading the thought that Laura and I must do the same on our own. My father refuses any nursing care at home as well. Sigh. Wish us luck. So, back to a timely subject. Although this is about physical pain, Laura and I suffer from emotional pain.

Me: Hello, Jamie and Erik!

Erik: Hello, Mom.

Jamie: I know I was, um—it’s based on what I read, right Erik?

(Pause)

Jamie: No. Some of us are not privy to information, Erik, until it reaches our computer, so… He was discussing John Hopkins. Is that right, Erik?

Erik: Yes.

Jamie listens.

Jamie (with amazement): What? Like two years ago? A doctor talking about cancer?

Erik: All the cancer treatments are pretty much about making money. You know, all the healers—of course we’ve been saying that shit for a long time—but now finally the medical field is coming onboard. This is one small step for Spiritualkind.

Jamie and I laugh.

Erik: This is how science and spirituality are merging.

Me: Good.

Erik: I think it’s really awesome that herbs, aromatherapy, massage, acupuncture—

Jamie: He’s listing off some other things in that field as well.

Erik: Stuff that’s considered complementary kind of go under the whole spiritual healing. That is awesome, and that’s what we gotta get back to.

Me: Yes. M.D. Anderson is a big cancer hospital here and I think they have an entire department for energy medicine and complementary healing like reiki and so on.

Erik: That’s what my sister needs to do.

Me: Yeah, exactly. Anyway, here’s a question from one of the blog members. It has to do with physical pain. How do we view pain in the body? Is there a way that we can process various types of pain to lessen it or should we view it in a more positive way?

Erik: Well, the first thing you have to do—have to, need to, I’m being serious about the words—is to recognize it, acknowledge it. We’ve been trained to shove it off. As kids when we fall down, the first response is, “You’re okay. Everything’s fine.” Fuck that! Not everything is fine to a two or three year old when all the skin is scraped off their knee.

Jamie giggles.

Erik: Shit hurts!

Jamie: He’s being so funny!

Erik: So, we automatically train our children to not acknowledge the pain when it comes in. If there’s pain either we choose to ignore it or it means that something is terribly wrong. Why can’t pain be a trigger in our bodies to let us know that it’s not wrong but it needs change? We’ve gotta stop doing this yes/no, right/wrong thing. So, it helps to acknowledge it. Don’t ignore it. When there’s severe pain, go into it. Get calm. Go to where it is. Start documenting how the pain is. Let’s see if there’s a pattern, because we want to see why the body’s giving us the signal and what are we not paying attention to.

Me: Okay.

Erik: Because it’s a side effect, but we tend to want to pacify it. We have to look at why is it coming back to us again and again and again. And then this blog member’s going to find that her pattern is what—

Jamie (to Erik): Wait. Say it again.

Erik: –that her pattern is unrecognized—

Jamie (to Erik): Oh, dude, just say it really lame. Don’t get all high falooting.

Erik (laughing): You normally catch on, Jamie.

Jamie: No, it’s just one of those days, Erik!

Me: Go easy on her, Erik. C’mon!

Jamie: Yeah! Just right now. Do it like I’m dumb.

Erik laughs.

Erik: What she’s going to find out is that the pattern is going to show her what she’s choosing to ignore in her life and she’ll find that it’s emotionally rooted.

Me: Ah!

Erik: It’ll be an emotional ignorance she’s doing. Most people feel like they’re completely open. They’ve done everything. They’ve done everything, but they still have the pain. Well, if they’ve done everything and they still have the pain—right there that’s bullshit. They haven’t done everything. They feel like they have. They’ve done everything that they can comprehend and that they can understand, so why not let their body be a better teacher for them and tell them to shut up, center, calm down and go into the pain. This’ll let them know what’s really going down. I agree more with medicines that kind of pacify or dull the pain, but not remove it 100%.

Me: Yeah.

Erik: If you remove the trigger of your body saying, “Hey, this is my voice; this is what I want to tell you. This is not cool,” then you’re going to fuck it up even more.

Me: Exactly. Okay. Very interesting. It all rings so true.