The Antidote to Pain

The Antidote to Pain

 

From Webster’s:

Antidote: to counteract the effects of poison

Counteract: to act directly against, neutralize or mitigate the effect with an opposing action.

 

The title for today’s blog came from my writing practice (A Writer’s Book of Days by Judy Reeves) and it posed an interesting question. Is there an antidote to pain? Can we administer some event, talisman, food or drug that will counteract and dissipate pain? I’m pretty sure there isn’t, at least not when it comes to emotional pain.

When we attempt to circumvent a feeling as basic as hurt, we only postpone the inevitable. Like grief or fear, hurt will take it’s own not so sweet time to be complete.

Perhaps by putting off the agony, we can lessen the impact in the moment, when we might be less able to cope with the fallout, but sooner or later we must accept and feel the pain. If we take an aspirin because we hurt, does it actually eliminate the pain or merely block our ability to perceive it? Is the pain still there?

Can such techniques be applied to the pain of feelings? To be able to block or distract until healing is complete without ever actually feeling hurt would be nice. Take one broken heart, spray with sunshine, bandage with hope, distract with a need, want or obsession and one day the ouch will be all gone without our ever really suffering. Nice thought, but I have my doubts.

Such pain may retreat in the face of our efforts to find an antidote, but I think if we refuse to face or experience pain, the hurt will fester in a deep dark place only to erupt at some future time in some unexpected way.

The definition of antidote specifically refers to poison, which infers that pain is a bad thing. Emotional pain may not be much fun and can feel downright unbearable, but bad? Not necessarily. Pain has an important part to play.  Getting hurt emotionally can be a warning and/or a lesson that something wasn’t working so perhaps we need to revisit our premises or do things differently or even move on. Emotional pain also reminds us of how much we care, when we lose something, if we didn’t care, we wouldn’t hurt. My brother believes that as long someone is remembered they aren’t truly gone; pain reminds us to remember, remember the good so we can have hope, remember the not so good, so we can learn and choose differently.

No, I’m afraid there is no antidote for pain; the only way over is through and that’s really not such a bad thing.

Onward and upward,

 

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit, 2012.

 

 

Related articles

• Let Your Pain Be Your Teacher (lessonsfromtheendofamarriage.com)

Day of Distinction – If I’m Not Holding On, Am I Letting Go?

I have a hard time letting go. The joke among my friends and ex’s is if you want to end our friendship you’d better get accepted into the witness protection program ‘cause I don’t give up on those who are important to me. This is a comfort to those friends whose busy lives make it difficult to stay in touch, but a bane to the occasional escapee. (Yes, it’s true; I once drove to San Antonio and back in 36 hours trying to find out the truth from a misplaced friend)

Sometimes this unwillingness to let go has resulted in regaining a relationship that once ended badly, which is miraculous. Sometimes this means prolonged suffering as I refuse to believe something that once was so good could have ended so badly and I go over and over what i coulda woulda shoulda done. (To paraphrase Katherine Hepburn in A Lion In Winter, “How, from where we started did we get here?”)

I’m better at stuff. I teach workshops on being organized so I’m pretty good at deciding whether something is eminently beautiful, useful or too sentimental to part with. I do have hard time letting go of things that once meant something important, even though that person has made a run for it. (Ok so I still have the crumbled duct tape from the first time I saw husband #1’s band play but it’s tiny and somewhere in a box…) This week I’m packing up a couple of things that were gifts from people whose departure and subsequent absence still hurts. At first I kept the items on display because they are beautiful, and I thought being reminded of the good times was a good thing, until they began sapping my energy and I felt surrounded by ghosts of a not so benevolent kind.

But back to today’s distinction,  letting go; it sounds so final, so active. As if I’m throwing away everything and the memories no longer have meaning or value. Or as in the case of job hunting, being open to finding a significant other, or some thing else where attachment isn’t the strongest spiritual path, letting go feels like I’m saying “WHAT – ever!” as if I have no interest in the outcome. This of course isn’t true, and I think the universe likes some clarity; in fact I think manifesting what we want or need demands a little clarity, a little input.

So I’ve reframed the whole idea into not holding on. To me this is a gentler, kinder way to tell the universe “I’m open to what you have in mind but I want you to know I’ve given this a more than passing thought and it’s kinda important to me.”

Letting go feels as if I’m throwing something away whereas not holding on feels like I’m just opening my hand, which allows whatever needs to leave, the space in which to exit while at the same time I’m open and ready to receive whatever is coming my way.

onward and upward,

 

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit, 2012.

 

I’m Just Wild About Harry

“One runs the risk of weeping a little if one lets himself be tamed” so says the Little Prince in my favorite book and it’s an issue I struggle with constantly. This morning Harry is missing and those words echo in my ears every time I look out the window.

Harry is one of my feral cats, and I’m just wild about Harry.

After my old cat Ian died and there was no one to guard the premises, a mother/daughter pair of cats moved in under the house. It was nice to have cats in the yard again so I let them stay.

Annie and Agnes (Ado Annie for the girl who just can’t say no in the musical Oklahoma and Agnes the secretary from Mame who takes a chance on life and ends up with more than she bargained for.) proved to be in the family way, not a good thing in a neighborhood with too many unwanted feral cats.

Then my neighbor came to the rescue with information about our town’s free spay neuter program for ferals. So we borrowed a trap and began an odyssey that would result in 15 spayed or neutered strays.

Of those fifteen, one decided she wanted to be a house cat and joined the family; eight live in my garden, one or two come by for breakfast, dinner and high tea. Yeah, I’m a crazy cat lady!

When word got out and the line for dinner reservations got too long, I began naming the cats by the alphabet, there was a little mix-up over black cats and so there are three B’s, Blackie, B-2 and Bagheera, luckily when we got to Phineas (who remains uncaptured) the parade slowed down.

So at any given time there’s a cat or two (or three or four) in view. Because most of the cats are young, barely a year old, they love to play and watching them provides great entertainment for the house gang and me.

Four of the ferals are pettable, 2 have become snugglers, and one has made several requests to join the house gang, that’s Harry. Did I mention I’m just wild about Harry?

Harry was tamed by playing chase the string, coming ever closer until the day he brushed against my leg; I scratched between his shoulder blades and the rest is history. He was tamed and so was I.

Harry rarely leaves the yard; he seems to always be at the door or window, every ready for play or a lap sit. This morning Harry was missing and I am reminded again that there are no guarantees in life or love.

Every time I put a pet “to sleep”, every time a friend dies or a lover decides we’re through, I wonder why I allow myself to care, to be tamed. For taming as the Little Prince explains, is about the time we waste for those we love, it is that investment of time, self and ritual that makes one little boy, one rose, one fox different from the rest.

It’s also what makes losing them so stinking painful!

Where once we could count on that smiling face, the chirp meant just for us, suddenly they’re gone and our broken hearts swear “never again.”

Since the day they arrived, the ferals have been a constant lesson in not holding on. Shortly after Annie and Agnes were released from recovery at my neighbor’s, Agnes disappeared. Annie was heart broken. All through their convalescence Annie and Agnes had slept wrapped around each other, now little Annie was alone in the world. I found Agnes a few days later in the field behind my house, it was not a pretty sight and a friend and I buried her down near the pond. My neighbor was more hurt than I, for it was she who had tended and bonded with Agnes. Annie, survived went on to become the matriarch, she made a new friend in Clyde and now rules the rest of the clan with an iron paw.

       Annie’s buddy Clyde

Annie keeps everyone in line!

Some of the cats became regulars; some occasional visitors, a few disappeared. Janet, Isabella’s shyer sister hasn’t are been seen in months, Kyle, Luke, Nathan, Ollie are gone. I wonder now and then what became of them, hoping they’ve found safe haven elsewhere. They were nice cats I guess, but certainly not tame, not like Harry.

A few months ago, frustrated by the vastness of social networking, I made a commitment to take the time to connect in meaningful ways with the people who have tamed me. Sometimes that’s by phone, sometimes that’s by text and sometimes that’s with real letters. For the most part the response has been positive; my friends have made the effort to meet me at least part way, making time in their busy lives to connect in ways that work for them, it’s the time we waste that makes someone special.

The disappearance of Harry makes me glad I took the time yesterday to play, however briefly and even more glad that I wrote my friend Gael a letter this morning, that tomorrow I go up to Ojo Caliente Hot Springs with Maureen who lives out of town and so I don’t see as often as I like. It’s why I show up on my weekly writers group call and why this Friday I am both excited and afraid to welcome the return to dinner at my house of a friend I’d thought that I’d never see again after he walked out almost 2 years ago.

I hope Harry will show up, because he is my cat and he is unique in all the world, and though I run the risk of crying for letting myself be tamed it’s still a risk I believe is worth taking.

onward and upward,

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit,2012.

 

 

Related articles

• Animal Welfare Groups Target Feral Cats For Sterilization (huffingtonpost.com)
• Push to get feral cats sterilized (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Group training volunteers to catch, fix and release feral cats to keep numbers in check (heraldnet.com)