Beyond the Pain

This post’s title is a riff on one of my fav Tina Turner tunes, “What’s Love Got To Do With It”?

Well, for those of us whose chronic pain orginates from childhood sexual abuse; I’d say EVERYTHING!

We’ve all heard about the Body/Mind thing. We’ve all heard about the Mind/Emotion thing. We’ve all heard about the Mind/Spirt thing. But, few of us (well at least me) seldom heard about the SEXUAL thing.

What do I mean?

Early on in therapy I learned that there is a BIG connection between the Mind and the Body. Through Cognitive Therapy I began to change the way I thought and the way I talked to myself. This helped mitigate my depression.

As I read hundreds of Self Help books I began to see the connection between Body / Mind and Emotion. Then came a 4th dimension: Spirit. I’ve long been a spiritual seeker but only in the last 15 or so years have I explicitly explored spiritual beliefs that are non-Christian.

So, up until recently my understanding was that the parts, or pieces, or aspects of our beings that intertwined and interacted with each other were just 4: Mind, Body, Spirit, Emotion.

Then I began to do some relationship work with my best friend Bill Astalnok who is a Certified “Body Vibrance” Coach. I was surprized to learn that the model which underpins Body Vibrance work is 5-fold.The added element being SEXUAL.

As I began to think about that it made a lot of sense. After all, sexual abuse victims have Tribal wounds; wounds that lodge in the 1s Chakra.

And, all the Cognitive Therapy in the world will not touch or release the Trauma stored in our sexual organs.

So, 2 years ago I sought out a local Tantric Coach to help me free up my sexuality. Unfortunately, I got sick … probably because I wasn’t then ready to really DO the Work.

Now though, I believe I am ready!

So, starting next week I’m going to be doing some Tantric Healing work.

My goal is to heal the pain of sexual abuse and to free up my creative, Kundalini energy.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Got that old ‘tired and wired’ feeling this morning because
I woke at 1:00 a.m. and could not get back to sleep.

I am thinking that I may need to drop my dosage of Effexor.
But, first I am going to cut out doing my light therapy.

Man my brain is racing but my body is tired. Used to be that
I could go for days on only 3 hours of sleep. Now the old body lets me know
right away just how unhappy it is.

That racy brain, tired body feeling is crazy making. It must
be like the mixed moods of Bipolar Affective Disorder: manic and depressed at
the same time! Who hoo!

It was nice to walk back from the service station with the
temperature at 0 Celsius (32 F). But, man some of the sidewalks are icy.
Homeowners who don’t shovel their sidewalks should be spanked at the very
least. I had to cross the street to find an ice free sidewalk and nearly got
run over by some yahoo speeding. People in this city are in too much of a
hurry.

The challenge today will be to figure out how to stay
focused; and to actually get something done.

I’m trying the timer method: 30 minutes to write and post
this, for example. And, ignoring the email arrived signals Gmail sends. Turning
the radio off to reduce stimulation. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath
to regain focus. Stretching my neck and upper arms every few minutes when I
notice them, which is usually when my eyes are closed.

Wow. This only took 13 minutes to write. Now to post it and
then on to private reflections.