The Price of Ignoring Your Pain

We add to our suffering when we try to ignore our pain. Our compulsions are ways we work to avoid noticing. Meditation helps us notice. If we practice it regularly, we learn that our pain will not kill us and even diminishes once we give it respectful attention.

Avoiding acknowledging our pain CAN kill us.

My “prayer” journals may have served the purpose of off-loading my angst. There is nothing wrong about that practice. When we admit our feelings we reduce resentment and soothe anxiety. Mediation helps us notice the things we are avoiding.

But it also increases conscious contact with God, which provides a light to our path.

Yesterday I stood from my meditation time and made my way to my iphone. I texted one of my children, “I need quality time with you.” I realized I had an incomplete amends to make. Today, we had a lovely lunch. My heart feels lighter. I am tempted to weigh myself (but will resist that urge).

Without my practice, I would not have had the space to notice my wrongdoing. I would not have had the awareness of how this pained me. But without my conscious contact with God, I doubt I would have known what to rise up and DO about it.

This is the gift of the Step 11 - a call to prayer and meditation, an invitation to draw near to God so that he might draw nearer to us. Go have a good sit, if you are so inclined!