Blood & Ink: Decorating Pain

Strange how we decorate pain…

This line hit me when I first stumbled upon it in a dusty forgotten corner of Poetry X.

It feels relevant to the healing-spirituality-growth world in which I have been embedded for the better part of the past few years.

• On the one hand, there is a timeless and near-limitless value to deep, comprehensive healing. I have seen it in myself and others countless times. Lives reclaimed, bloodlines shifted, possibilities expanded, and generational pain lifted.
• On the other hand, it is all too easy to develop a kind of perverse obsession—nay, addiction—to the hamster wheel of healing. It becomes the ultimate excuse, “I can’t do this until I’ve healed some repressed, unconscious trauma that I can’t even name.” It becomes the cornerstone of people’s identity.

It is strange, how we decorate our pain…

As if it gives us something we’ve been missing. As if it ‘more real’ in our lives than the countless beauties, joys, and victories we’ve experienced.

If I were to find a positive flip of the energy that Jocko, Goggins, and JBP have thrown into the public zeitgeist, it boils down to: “Stop decorating your pain and get on with it.”

The harsh wisdom of the Father.

Yes, you have pain. Yes, it may very well be impossible to get through childhood without some level of accumulated trauma. Yes, there is value to healing this when it becomes the true obstacle in the way. But no, it’s not insurmountable. No, it’s not an excuse for not taking action. No, it’s not a good nor reliable foundation to build your identity on top of.

My teacher and curandero, Remi Delaune, says “No fear, no fascination.”

Do not ignore your pain. Do not repress it. But do not get obsessed with it. Be not fascinated by it.

There is far more scrumptious beauty, strength, and genius inside of you. The pain is only masking it.

Go into it and beyond it, it is not the final destination on your journey.

You need not decorate your pain,
EB.