Tag: pain

We all have vices, some used to accentuate our pleasure and some to ease the pain. The greater our need to enhance or eliminate the more we engage in our vice.

My mother always said “too much of one thing is good for nothing.”  As a God fearing woman she said turn to prayer for everything. Prayer is powerful, comforting and necessary in the world of many. We reach out to a power beyond the universe seeking guidance, help and most importantly the messenger who will deliver us from our ailments. Keyword being “messenger” in whatever forms it may come. We crave each other’s touch, to be held, to have arms physically wrapped around us so we can feel and believe it will be ok. We wait for that physical messenger and we find it in a vice. Oh yes I believe in the Almighty but when I hurt it is a physical pain that burns deep into the core of my soul.

“Is it a dream (is it a dream), that I am throwing in the wishing well, I am losing control my body and soul, Standing here waiting for a train that may never come… Deep water I am drowning, deep water Im slowly drowning in deeper…” Deep Water, by Incognito.  You have been here, loving someone who doesn’t love you the same way. Think about it, when love or life doesn’t go as we hoped, we begin to flail our arms, struggling to stay afloat, and some of us slowly start sinking.

Many people, regardless of their faith, are weakened by pain. While we are often taught ‘no matter how bad it is someone out there has it worse.’ That concept doesn’t hold water for too long because if you are extremely sensitive (like me) it makes you feel worse!  You end up absorbing the possibility of it being worse, increasing the burden that you are carrying. You cry out to the universe ‘what did I do, why is it happening, when will it stop?!’ Waiting…  no response. So you turn to your vice: drinking, smoking, drugs, sex, verbal/physical abuse, food … whatever it takes to release this anguish if even for a moment.

Pain is pain. What is nothing to you is overwhelming to another. We can’t say one pain is not as bad as the other. Vices used to cover our pain are like walking blindly into oncoming traffic on an eight lane highway with cars, trucks and buses coming in both directions at 80+ miles per hour. You just go and whatever happens is just that…it is what it is.

Even if you have the gift of true friends who will listen judgment free it may not be enough. The demons that dwell in your core are greater than that gift. It’s sad and difficult to understand unless you have walked thru the fire. When you succumb to the power of your vices some say it’s a sign of weakness, is it really?

“Lonely is a place I used to be, but I’m closing that door, I won’t live there anymore”, I Refuse To Be Lonely, by the late great Phyllis Hyman’s.

You tried as long as you could to deal, the pressure builds and builds so what do you do? Some close the door on their own, slow suicide thru overindulgence of that which masks the pain. Living inside their private pressure cooker, simmering, stewing, and burning until enough is enough! There is no definitive answer on how to overcome or simply ease the pain, especially when you feel God just isn’t enough. You cannot negatively judge those whose faith appears not to be strong enough. You cannot discard them, call them weak or selfish. Just like you can be blinded by anger you can be blinded by pain.

“People just don’t know what I’m about…They haven’t seen what’s there behind my smile…There’s so much more of me I’m showin out…(These are the pieces of me)”, Pieces of Me, Ledisi’s opening verse.

It’s the pieces that make us whole, when you feel like all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put back together again your vices become your only alternative…but often times it doesn’t get you out.

I passionately and sincerely cry out to the universe to heal those in pain, to bring them whatever is needed to fill the emptiness that slowly eats them from the inside out. Let the method of healing be one that strengthens not destroys, may negative vices be replaced with positivity and support from our villages… for we are not designed to stand alone. 

© Soulmuze 2012