Friday Five: Physical pain

:: Friday Five :: Week 10 :: Physical pain ::
How to participate: 1) Join holy memes and kosmic blog starters and check it out every Friday for a different set of five questions. 2) Copy and paste those questions (and this message!) into your blog. 3) Tag your entry with the words “Friday Five” and post it. 4) Come back to the pod and tell us about your post. 5) Message suzanne with ideas for next week. Let's spread the seeds!

1) Why is there physical pain?

 It is there to help us learn. All of us are at different points in our spiritual paths. Each of us is at the perfect place in our development to be able to learn the lessons presented to us in our lives. Perhaps enduring a life of cronic pain helps teach forgiveness, the ability to ask for help, humility, and so on. For me, I'll never forget: I was in the fifth grade and my mother said she'd give anything to take my pain away from me so I wouldn't have to suffer. I told her, 'no, I am who I am today because of the pain. It has helped me grow.' And this coming from such a small girl absolutely floored my mom. 

2) Do you prefer western or eastern medicine? Why?

 I like eastern medicine because it is rooted in prevention of disease,and maintenance of health. Western medicine mostly deals with treating symptoms.

3) Describe your own personal experience with pain. Chronic illness? Trips to doctors? Shamans? Hospitals? Accupuncture?

I wore an immobilizing back brace for a fractured vertebrae in the fourth and fifth grades. The pain from the fracture made me cry a lot. I took days off from school to moniter my scoliosis, and my father had to drive me an hour to a big hospital for the x-rays. The device they used to halt the curvature of my spine was annoying and painful. It sent electrical impulses directly into the muscles that needed to strengthen to counter the curve. 

I now have a very high tolerance for chronic pain and I was able to birth my first son with no pain medications, naturally. My second son, however, was a more complicated delivery and the doctors made the call to do an emergency c-section. Recovering from that was the absolute worst I've ever felt. It took two weeks to be able to bend to the floor with minimal pain, and about three weeks before I could stand up straight again without pain.

 4) Have you or someone you know been miraculously healed?

 If faith is a miracle, then yes.

5) What is the biggest healing secret you have learned in your life?

That you have the power to heal yourself. It's a secret because not many people I know actually believe it. They implore God, "Why me?" and go on living in pain.  Our marvelous brains have the ability to heal ourselves with intent. Check out the pod on What the Bleep!