Why pain persists

The pain of isolation and loneliness has been my biggest life-long trigger of suffering. It’s popped up in incredibly numerous ways. Hidden away for a time when in a season of exponential growth or buried in the arms of a lover, or in those seasons when I felt really met in a caring community.

And then it re-emerges.

I thought by taking a long term path into inner healing with every form of energy work and spiritual practices, it would get healed.

But it hasn’t.

This week I received a surprising revelation from my inner voice about why deep pain like this persists. By coming into more understanding, there’s a new-found acceptance and sense of peace around this painful place.

Whatever your big persisting pain may be, coming to understanding of why these types of deep pains exist and don’t just dissolve may offer a life-giving perspective, or at least fodder for your own inner voice conversation.

The gap that brings pain

I’ll start by sharing what my inner voice said in relation to my own pain about isolation, and then unpack it, because this is pretty dense:

'There is a need for much solitude in this path. We are not even demanding or explaining what will be but showing what has been, and this has already been seen many times. Even though it is seen, that does not even alleviate the depth of pain, which is a result of the continual energetic disturbance between what is known to be here and what is seen out there. And we would not even alleviate this, because this would require this pretense to pretend that what is in here is like what is out there or pretend that what is out there is like what is in here. Rather we would invite to this recognition, being with reality, with what is, seeing what is in here more and more clearly, and at the same time even more substantially the mismatch with what occurs in this external environment, and not demanding these to be the same, rather allowing this disparity.

'And in this, this pain, is even this recognition, although it is when the human from the space veers away from us, even one smidgen, then pain occurs. As we are with this massive gap between what is here and what is there, and we are allowing it to be, there is not this pain. But this appears when the human veers back to this mind life, the frame of separation, and then is instantly in this teary-eyed place that has been described.’

Paraphrasing now:

• There are 2 very different worlds being experienced:
• There’s an inner world of peace and love, and I’ve experienced it a lot.
• There’s an external world that’s often chaotic, where people are constantly trying to get something from each other, through whatever means possible, including ignoring, manipulating and outright stealing.
• The pain comes from the gap between the love and acceptance I’ve already experienced in the inner world and the indifference and rejection I experience when I try to connect in the external world.
• To alleviate that pain, when the mind is leading the life, it would hide and pretend.
• It could pretend that the inner world is like what is in the external world (this is often done when minds imagine “God” to simply be the best mind possible).
• It could pretend that the external world is like the inner world, and hide from what the external world is really like.
• The inner voice invites to allow the disparity to exist and not hide from it at all, but to see it more and more clearly.
• The being is never in pain from this gap, but as soon as the human veers back into seeing life through egoic separation, then the pain from seeing the gap comes back.

So when I attempt to form deep, meaningful connections, I often feel met by a world that is at best indifferent to me, and at worst, uses my innate desire for deep connection to attempt to manipulate me into getting what they want.

Lots of people don’t feel much pain from surface-level connecting or even manipulative tactics, because they’ve never seen the gap. They haven’t experienced what it’s like to be fully, unconditionally loved and accepted, so living in the world as it exists now just seems normal, with some wishes here and there for things to be a bit better.

But for me, and for all of us sensitive souls that have dived into the arms of everlasting love, we can’t go back. That veil’s been torn, and it would be pretty difficult, likely impossible to put it back to together and fully hide from what we know.

But in order to somehow deal with the massive gap between what is, within inner love, and what’s experienced in outer mayhem, we’ll often just numb out. Try to avoid looking. Not put ourselves in situations that starkly show that disparity.

That’s been a tactic that I’ve used a lot and continue to use. After moving to a new city earlier this year, I tried joining a community based in spiritual expression, but each week I attended, it re-wounded. It brought up this awareness of that big gap and often left me in deep pain. This would then require another loving session with inner voice to regain equilibrium. I eventually chose not to continue with that community, as it’s clear I’m not ready yet.

I feel like there’s a place for tactics of not putting yourself in situations that exacerbate a tender place. But the ultimate invitation from inner voice is not to numb, hide, or pretend it’s not there; it’s to become the being that isn’t scared, that has no capacity whatsoever for feeling pain, no matter the circumstance.

Now I’m feeling this understanding that brings relief. It’s not getting rid of the pain from the observed gap, but it is getting rid of what Buddhists call the “second arrow” — that guilt that you are bothered by the gap. The shame we heap on ourselves or even the feeling that it should not be this way.

Yes, my inner voice is saying, it should. Yes, there should be tears here. This is natural. It’s normal. When you’ve seen the vast beauty that’s in here, and then you’re faced with a stinky pile of garbage on the outside of your life, you’re going to veer away from that. You’ll feel something along the lines of resistance, sadness, anger, or dread.

Yet when you allow it, and when you come to be the “US” that’s within you that’s already accepting, already loving, even in the midst of external chaos, then there’s no pain nor any need to hide, pretend, or do anything else with this gap but simply love it. And in loving it, you’re in the process of healing it.

Did anything come up for you about how this might apply to your own persistent pains?