Each of us has a relationship to pain, conscious or not.

Whether you see it as your friend or foe, pain has helped you grow, and taught you important lessons. Pain is a familiar experience in life. It's never fun when you're going through the thick of it, but pain can be a valuable ally when you create a more conscious relationship to it.

Being in a body can sometimes be a painful experience. Emotions, including pain, are the language of the body. You can learn compassion from feeling your own wounds, and also from witnessing and validating the feelings of others around you.

You know the feeling, sometimes all too well.

You don’t want to be around a certain someone who really bugs you. However, circumstances dictate that you must be in the presence of this person from time to time – perhaps you are related, or you work together. Maybe you live in the same city, and that’s enough.

It’s bad enough when your nemesis seems blissfully unaware of how you feel, and acts as if you were bosom buddies. It’s even worse when your enemy is aware of your discomfort and twists the knife in a little bit more every time you have to be within spitting distance of each other.

When everything in your world seems to be unraveling, it’s not easy to see how healing is taking place.

If you’ve held tightly onto what has been, to the things you thought were real, it’s even more painful when those things begin to fall apart.

No, it’s not a new hit country song. It is how a lot of people see themselves, though unconsciously so.

As in, “well, I’m just going to go pick up that pain over there, drive it around, and see if I can find it a good home”. Pain makes things real for many people, it makes their bodies real.