At its simplest form, pain is a sensation in the body that alerts you to something that hurts or something that is damaging the body. If there is a hot stove and you put your hand on it, the pain response exists to alert you that there is something out there that is harming you. It’s really an emergency signal designed for your protection to keep you safe.

But what about emotional or chronic pain?  Pain is highly subjective and is experienced by each one of us very differently, and we can never really know someone’s pain. Have you ever been surprised at someone’s reaction to pain? Have you tried to compare your pain with someone else’s?

You can’t compare. Each one of use will experience and sense differently based on our past experiences, prior injury or trauma, or the situation in which the pain arises. Pain and the sensations of pain are unique and individual, and very, very real to that person.

When you start considering pain and how it speaks you can begin to understand the language of your body. Pain can guide you and highlight areas of your life that may be causing you stress or discomfort and help you work through them.

Eckhart Tolle says, “Do not resist your pain. Surrender to the grief, despair, fear, loneliness, or whatever form the suffering takes. Witness it without labeling it mentally. Allow it to be there. Embrace it. Then see how the circle of surrender transmutes deep suffering into deep peace.”

When pain is held or stuck and not expressed, it can appear in areas of your body, depending on the emotion.

Researchers call this Body Syndrome and have suggested that the following areas hold stuck emotion:

• Shoulders- Responsibility/Burdens

• Throat- Self Expression

• Heart- Grief, Sorrow, Sadness, Loss

• Chest- Guilt, Shame, Unworthiness

• Upper Back- Lack of Emotional Support

• Lower Back- Worry (generally around money)

• Reproductive/Lower Intestines- Rejection, Betrayal and Insecurity About Mortality

• Hands- Holding On/Letting Go

When you stop resisting your pain, you can find freedom. When you look at your pain as a way for

your body to talk with you, and you give space for it to be heard, the pain begins to shift and dissolve.

What if you stop trying to fight your pain and simply learn to listen? What if?