I am using a very personal story to myself and my family to illustrate how there is so much more to our physical pains than we might know.

June 15th 2014, Father’s Day, my mom had a stroke. If my dad hadn’t been around her she would have died. He resuscitated her and she was airlifted to the hospital. She was in coma for months. 

Back story on what was occurring around the time of the stroke, as things are hardly ever random if we pan out enough. I had met Marcus, March 2014 and moved out of LA days before she had the stroke. To my mom I was her everything. It all happened so fast, from meeting Marcus to moving. My mom was so happy for me and apparently she was freaking out about her loss. My younger brother is retarded, in some ways it has felt like I have been their only child.

The first stop after leaving LA was Fiji, taking care of Anthony Robbins as he conducted one of his seminars. Midway through the seminar I get the call that my mom had a stroke. Marcus arranged for the first flight out of Fiji and into LA. I can’t tell you how much magic had to occur for this to happen so quickly and the wonderful Fijian people and their heart fullness rather than enforcement of rules that allowed us to leave ASAP. We arrive in LA not knowing if she was going to be alive.

Fast forward. I have been living abroad since the move out of LA. My dad has been working and caring for my brother and mother. Mother is “functional” and has short term memory loss and needs lots and lots of hours of sleep daily and gets tired very easily. Brother retarded and lives with parents. 

My dad used to tell me on every FaceTime call that my mother is improving, when she wasn’t. He was hoping and wishing that if he kept on encouraging her and holding a positive possibility that she would step into that reality. Positive expectancy, is when we see things as they are and we hold a vision for what can be. Denial is not seeing things as they are and convincing ourselves that there is great possibility. He was in denial and I accepted that he wasn’t ready to see things as they were. 

Fast forward to today. July 2, 2018. Almost coming on 4 year anniversary of the stroke. My dad says his right foot hurts a lot to the point her can hardly walk. I ask what he thinks its about. He says is is uric acid crystals? Gout? I ask is it in the big toe? No its not its in the foot not the toe. so then we could rule out Gout. What struck me was when he was speaking of his foot pain, it felt like the ground had been pulled from under his feet and he felt terrified. The symptom and the feelings around the symptom didn’t match. The magnitude of the feelings had a lot of charge, so I knew there was more to be uncovered. This is when its more than just physical pain! I asked him how he felt about his foot pain. I asked what did his pain mean for him? What was he afraid of now that he has the pain? Bam, my father isn’t one to cry nor one that allows a lot of emotions to feely flow, he is “strong" and like a rock and very rational. This is what men of his generation were taught to be.

He burst out crying when I asked the question, what was he afraid of now that he has the pain?

He said my mom isn’t improving. I said yah I am glad you finally are coming into terms with this. He said he is afraid if something happens to him, and now that he realizes she isn’t improving and will not be independent once again who would take care of my mom and brother. He felt that it was all on him to take care of them and he is happy to care for them, but what if something happened to him, who would care for them? So because he is a rational strong man, he hadn’t let himself feel the fear of the who will take care of his wife and son. When he had the symptom, now he had a diversion that is acceptable to him to have a freakout about, which was having foot pain. It was ok in his eyes to freak out about something physical.

I reassured him that I would care for them, if something were to happen to him. He cried some more and felt relief and all of a sudden his concern about his foot wasn’t so concerning. 

When you have pain. Some great quality questions to ask:

How do I feel about what I am feeling?

What does my pain mean for me?

What is this pain really about? 

And allow your subconscious mind to float up and to reveal itself to you. 

How NSA helps; the more NSA you receive, the more you connect to the prefrontal lobe. 

The prefrontal lobe allows you to know in more real time, what you are feeling and how you feel about what you are feeling as life is happening. You can observe life and your response and meanings you give to life as it is occurring. Also there is more of a connection between the mind and body so when you touch your body or area of symptom and you connect to it, you can get more knowing or wisdom from the body part of symptom. It is easier to have a sense! So you can get to whats happening behind whats happening more quickly. 

If you have a story like this please share it with me!