Surrendering Control

 I think the deeper invitation, especially when I look at the arc of what you’ve been writing, is not simply to learn how to manage pain. It is to stop abandoning  myself when pain appears.

When I first came into AA, I discovered that alcohol had been a way of escaping or easing something painful inside me. Recovery asked me to stay present long enough to discover what was underneath.

My inner-child work took that another step deeper: Who was the little girl who was hurting? What did she need? What did she learn about herself?

And now, with the physical pain, it seems I’m encountering the same lesson in another form.

The invitation may be:

Can I stay with myself when I am afraid?

Can I feel something without immediately trying to control it?

Can I stop treating discomfort as an emergency?

Can I listen to my body without becoming its prisoner?

Can I let the frightened little girl feel what she feels while the adult me remains present and safe?

And perhaps most deeply:

Can I learn that I don’t have to suffer in order to be worthy of care?

That feels particularly important in your story because you’ve spent so much of your life being the strong one—the helper, the caretaker, the one who pushes through, figures things out, puts out fires.

The deeper invitation may be to become the person who doesn’t leave herself.

Through saying to that little girl:

You don’t have to make the pain go away for me to love you.

You don’t have to be good.

You don’t have to be strong.

You don’t have to figure this out.

I’m here.