#603 Healthy Relationship with CHRONIC Pain

     CHRONIC pain is fascinating - IF we don't allow it to automatically shut us down. By "shut us down" I include all of our usual mindless behaviors: anger, blaming, popping pills, otherwise "self-medicating", complaining, playing the victim, withdrawing, etc, etc.
     WHAT IF we DIDN'T judge chronic pain to be a terrible mistake? What if we simply didn't know what to make of it - drew no conclusions, made no judgments? The fact is, we don't know much at all about our generally unexamined life. 
     For one thing, we typically mistakenly OVERREACT to CHRONIC pain as though it were acute - yet it's sending us a TOTALLY DIFFERENT message, about a completely different situation.
     ACUTE pain signals an emergency. It's an alarm bell screaming at us to stop everything & immediately look after a potentially life-threatening injury.
     CHRONIC pain, far from being an emergency, is an ongoing reminder that we need to address existential issues in this lifetime. 
     To the extent we mindfully open our mind-heart to the reality of sickness, aging, and death, we heal into wholeness. 
     To the extent that we refuse to do so, and (like heroin addicts, we) aggressively demand a "cure" - escape from reality, OR become cynically embittered by life, we suffer. 
     The CHOICE is entirely ours - let's make it intelligent!