Friday, December 16, 2011

Pain in the Neck: A Story with a Happy Ending

My neck was a mess. It had kinks, muscle tightness and a dull pain.
This neck pain was, forgive the pun, a pain in the neck.
It got to the point when I could barely turn my neck to do a shoulder check when riding my bike in the summer.
So I began going to my massage therapist weekly in hopes of working it out. I have periodically visited a cranio-sacral massage therapist ever since she magically banished the migraines I was getting when I was pregnant with my first child. Generally, one or two visits eliminates whatever pain I might have for months.
But after about six weeks of regular visits, it didn't seem to be making any difference. So I asked a logical question: "Why isn't this working?"
To which she responded, "You have a lot of stress in your body. You carry it in your shoulders – the weight of the world. Until you deal with that, I can only offer up mild relief." Then she went further, suggesting I ask myself a question: Is it true that it isn't getting better?
To which I admitted that, well, I could now shoulder check quite easily, though it still ached at time when I sat at my desk.
"So," she said, "it's getting better."
"Yes."
"If it's getting better," she ventured, "then isn't it possible that it can continue to get better."
"Yes."
"And what might you need to do to help it continue to get better."
And so I admitted that I could stretch more, stand up from my desk more often and – here's the key – tell a different story.
This story, rather than focusing on this pain in the neck that won't abate, is about pain that is abating, albeit slowly. It's about letting go of the stress in my life that I don't need to take on (my father's grief over my mom's death, for example). It's about being responsible for my own "stuff" and letting others deal with their own. It's about not managing other's issues (ie. reading to my husband from books I've been reading on addiction in the hopes that he'll "see" the point) and letting them find their own way.
Lo and behold, my neck pain is improving. It even disappeared a few weeks ago.
Now I feel it creeping back but rather than look at it as a setback, I'm viewing it as an early warning system.
I'm taking on more than I should (holiday shopping, planning, mailing gifts – trying to create the "perfect" holiday for my family).
I'm building resentment over my husband's refusal to go to church with me and my kids. (This is fodder for another post but he was raised Catholic and marched into church every Sunday and has a strong visceral reaction to ANY church.)
I'm trying to tell myself a different story around that. I could stick with the script that if he loved me enough, he'd overcome his resistance and go because it's important to me and the kids.
Or I could tell myself that he has such trauma around church and his parents' doctrine of guilt and shame that church triggers trauma all over again (there's also the potential that he's repressing abuse...given his sex addiction). And that he'll either overcome it or not...as he chooses. In the meantime, I have the choice to either go alone with the kids, or not. My choice.
My story.
My healing.

What's yours? And can you reframe it in a way that gives you power?


3 comments:

  1. Happy New Year, Elle. And, to all my sisters in the BWC, I'm wishing that 2012 is less painful than 2011.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know this is months later, but I spent Christmas day with a migraine brought on by the stress of having to choose to take my two children to church alone leaving him at home with the OC because he didn't want to go to church. Since then i have learned of the ongoing affair with OW#2. But I missed church with my family on Christmas, which is important to me, because the issue with him caused me pain to the point of migraine.
    That was the 4th miserable Christmas in a row. I have learned to dread Christmas. I don't even want to think that far ahead this year. I haven't seen him in the three wks since discovering the affair that has been going on since I learned of the OC.

    I was hoping 2012 would be less painful too, but it has been so much more painful. I hoping to put my life back together but I know I have to do it differently than I tried the first time.

    Imagine if you had to go through this twice....the pain, the confusion...

    It's no wonder I'm such a mess.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You've been through hell...now it's time to keep going to emerge from it. What can you do to take care of yourself? What can you do now that you know he wasn't committed to truly reconciling? What choices can you make that respect and honor yourself and your heart's desires?
      These are the questions you need to start asking yourself. You can keep on playing the victim...or you can take back your power and start living the life YOU want to life, without the lies, deceit and pain. It's not easy -- in fact, it's really hard. I know that. But it's also possible. And, I would think, far more preferable than to continue to live not knowing what he's doing and with whom.
      Start imagining how life COULD be...and then set about creating that, one (tiny, if necessary) step at a time.
      In the meantime, we're here to keep reminding you that you can do this, whatever "this" is for you.
      Elle

      Delete

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