How to Release Pain

“How do I let go of the pain?”

I get asked this question a lot. We tend to carry around great bags of pain behind us, or we’re simply buried under it—pain inflicted during childhood, regret for decisions we’ve made, guilt about what we’ve done, anguish about how we’ve affected others, and more. Nearly all of this pain is about the past, which no longer exists, and yet we keep dragging it behind us, on and on—year after year, mile after mile, even generation after generation.

In short, very little of our pain is necessary. We have enough of the necessary kind—the aches and pains of old age, for example, or the grief of the recent death of loved ones—without adding all the pain we can let go of.

So how can we do that? How can we free ourselves of the pain we can avoid?

First Step: Feel It

This might seem counterintuitive—how could it possibly be a good thing to choose to feel pain, right?—but the truth is that on the whole we really do not simply FEEL pain. Instead we minimize it, hide it, avoid it, treat it, and lie about it. In other words, mostly we just REACT to pain rather than consciously choosing to feel it.

Until we choose to feel the pain, we’re stuck in an endless cycle of reacting to it. We become involuntary prisoners to it. We can begin to change our pain when we regard it as information, as an indication of what is happening to us and inside us—or what has happened in the past. If we simply react to the pain—almost always to minimize it—we learn nothing from it and can’t make conscious choices about moving our lives in more loving and happy directions.

Second Step: A Firm Commitment Not to Stay in It

Although feeling pain can give us invaluable information, I am not suggesting that we should STAY in our pain. Many people do that—they wallow in their pain—and it becomes a lifelong pattern. Living in pain can, in fact, become an addiction. How? What benefit could pain possibly offer? To name just a couple of benefits, when we choose to stay in pain, often we avoid responsibility—who would dare hold us accountable for our responsibilities while we’re in pain?—and we earn sympathy everywhere we go.

So, pain can be useful, but if we allow ourselves to wallow in it, we become only more debilitated and helpless. We have to make a firm commitment not to stay in it, much like a commitment to avoid any other addictive substance or behavior.

Third Step: Remember the Truth

Now we’re getting to a more practical and powerful step. Any addict knows that simply committing to avoid an addiction is rarely effective. We need more.

Most of our pain—by far—is not a result of trauma presently occurring. Most of our pain is due to trauma of the past—especially childhood—and our regrets about past choices. So our pain in the present is based on the lie that past pain will continue.

What is the truth?

Among others:

• I have experienced being loved in the past, so I do know what it feels like to be loved.
• I have people who love me unconditionally right now.
• I can feel loved right now.
• When I feel loved, I feel happy.
• I am not alone.
• I can choose to feel happy, so I have nothing to fear.

All the above truths depend, of course, on their actually being true for us individually. We can’t remember that the love in our lives is true unless we HAVE been loved. If we can’t make that claim presently, we can read books in the Real Love series, and join the RealLove.com website, where we find instructions that will help us find that love we require.

Fourth Step: Let It Go

If we remember the truth—as described above—and we also remember the subsequent feelings of love and happiness, the natural result is GRATITUDE. Once we’ve achieved that condition, truly embraced it, we can’t stay in emotional pain. Genuine gratitude banishes pain. And then we can begin to let the pain go. We can begin to relax the death grip that many of us have on our pain.

Additionally, if you have a belief in a loving God, you can not only let your pain go, but you can let God take it from you. Many people have experienced this powerful effect.

Fifth: Find and Share Real Love

As we find, feel, and share Real Love—as described in all the Real Love materials—we put ourselves in the flow that is the greatest power of the universe. In this exalting flow, it is much more difficult to reach down and pick up the pain we have released.

Finally

Some pain in life is unavoidable, but most of it can be released, which will greatly enable us in our search for profound and lasting happiness.