With Pleasure Comes Pain – Is This True?

It’s interesting how much we hide hidden blocks behind what seem like nothing much at all. We may think we are resisting eating healthily for example or resisting exercising and we just think ‘Oh it’s just because I find it boring’ or ‘I’m just too tired to do any of this’

2022 was a pretty hard year for me, I fell in love for the first time, it was unrequited, but we both had some pretty deep soul lessons to experience together. I felt we had known one another many times before, but in this lifetime we were not meant to be, but the experience was very intense.

It was exciting in the beginning, but then it turned into a lot of pain. Grief from being rejected, confusing from mixed messages and signals and then he got sick, in all honesty he was sick in 2021 too, but it was easy just to look at his lifestyle and think that’s why, but he had cancer and once he was finally diagnosed in May 2022 in a few months he was dead.

Seeking Out That Which Causes Us Pain

I cared for him and he opened his heart more and more to me the more all the lifestyle distractions fell away and he became more receptive. I also allowed myself to overcome a fear of intimacy through that whole experience. Many other things took place that intensified the grief, but for the purpose of this post, I simply wanted to draw attention to pleasure pain principle. How we often can’t see how much we may expect pain from certain experiences unconsciously and so we seek out people who will bring us pain. And because of the unconscious desire to be with someone ‘unavailable’ we may put ourselves through time and time again this pleasure pain cycle, but it goes much deeper than this too.

A few months after he passed, my best friend who I’ve shared a home with for 20 years was diagnosed with advanced cancer too. I was just starting to rise up from a really dark place, I was starting to see the potential of the ‘new’ again and BOOM! Life threw me one of my greatest fears, again.

My greatest fear has been losing those I love.

Death From My Personal Power

Probably because I reacted so deeply when my father died when I was 26, but after much self questioning I discovered the fear was not so much to do with death, but that I felt on an unconscious level (no longer unconscious), that whenever I began to feel responsible for myself, my mind, body and spirit, my financial side of life, that those I loved (specifically men I loved, be it family, friend or in other ways) would die.

My being independent and practising self-responsibility in my inner child’s view led to death.

My best friend was always a trigger for this, he is in his 80s now, but we met in his late 60s. We have known one another in many lifetimes, once again, we are like family, friends, platonic house-husband in a way and the more I opened my heart to him and allowed myself to love him the greater the fear he would die came up. And I worked out some time ago that this linked to being able to sustain myself.

So at this time, even though I brought this stuff up to my conscious mind, I do rely on him. Part of my income from self-employment, Government support goes towards bills etc…but some of it comes from my best friends support. It has brought up a lot of shame based feelings for a long time.

I had been locked in a cycle of 5 steps forward to succeeding in something I loved doing to 5 steps back because that ‘story’ was still playing ‘I can’t succeed or be self-sufficient, because if I no longer need him he will die’.

This was what I internally believed happened with my father.

Stuck Between Holding On and Letting Go

I left home the year he died. And within a couple of months he dropped dead.

Logically and intellectually we can all say ‘but yes Kelly, of course you weren’t responsible, it was his time.’ And while I know deep down we all have a window we leave on, a window we choose to leave, that experience hit me hard. The grief was so heavy I lost my job because I had to care for my mum and sister for a few months and when I returned to Gloucester I had to have that ‘parental support’ from the Government.

I went through many jobs after this, nothing ever sitting with me, nothing really fitting. And about a year after my father passed I met my best friend and he moved from Portsmouth to share a home.

Now fast forward to 2023.

I’ve never felt so triggered in my life. Not only seeing my best friend experience similar things to my close friend who passed in September, but triggered by a fear of not only loss of my best friend and rock, but potential loss of my home, my lifestyle and more.

I wake up each day, trying to be present, but I tend to wake up hoping when I say good morning to him he will still be alive and wondering how the hell I can turn my life around so I am self-sustaining.

Health, Happiness and Vitality

And today something else woke up inside of me.

I saw a spiritual counsellor recently over another issue and I’ve been watching a workshop she did on a zoom call and something both me and my best friend have been resisting doing is exercise, getting fit and healthy. I’ve been feeling tired for too long and lacking vitality and yes of course most would feel like this after the year I’ve had, but something else was taking place.

What would exercise do?

Why did I not want to exercise?

What does exercise mean to me?

It means health, wellness, vitality.

It means having the energy to take more action in directions I’d like to go to.

It means healing back issues that limit my ability to be a channel for healing more.

And surprisingly, it means no excuses for moving forward or doing something I want to do.

I would feel more attractive, my sexual energy would flow more.

I could connect to a man who I feel my close friend who passed was preparing me for, and opening me up, which is still unfolding.

And doing so I would feel alive and vital again.

Underwritten Beliefs Form

One thing I realise is that many of us may put restrictions or limits on our lives. We may say ‘I’d love a miracle to pay off my debts’ and by doing this we are underwriting this belief by saying ONLY MIRACLES can do this and back in our unconscious mind we may not believe miracles happen or believe they are hard to experience and rare so in fact what we are saying is we will never pay off those debts and so we keep ourselves locked into a cycle.

This is one of my underwritten beliefs.

But a bigger belief I had signed into was ‘When I meet my perfect partner and really enjoy the relationship my best friend can then leave this planet’.

It has even been cemented more-so as my best friend has said he wants this for me too. He always said he was here to support me, but did not realise that support had us both locked into karmic cycle that leaves little room for growth or forward movement.

Today I did some EFT (emotional freedom technique) I’ve done this a lot in the past but today it was interesting to see how tapping on acupressure points about ‘I don’t want to get better through exercise or healthy eating or healthy thoughts’ (it’s okay to be honest when doing EFT, you need to do this) led to what being healthy meant for me, making new choices in my passions and how it meant allowing myself to welcome a healthy romantic relationship based on mutual care, love, interests, support, but also two separate individuals enjoying a union and how this linked to losing my best friend.

So I continued tapping and as I did I realised that allowing myself to feel healthy and vital, to make new choices, to take actions, to face my fear of shining and being my true self, to allow myself to love from a wholesome place (not being with someone for the dramatic excitement of the push – pull relationship with someone unavailable), but to realise that I could live this vital energised life and be with someone and embrace that experience fully and recognise that my best friend may choose to live too AND more importantly open myself to letting go of holding onto him so that if he chooses to leave that too is okay.

But it all starts with me, allowing myself to leap out from the tiny goldfish bowl of my life and leap into the great ocean of the unknown.

To no longer wear old shoes that hurt and are worn out and instead to try on new shoes and know that life can and will unfold in far more beautiful ways than I could ever imagine.

And that life does not have to be pleasure equals pain, but that pleasure and life satisfaction can mean relief, release and freedom in whatever way, shape or form that comes.

All it takes is recognising the hidden beliefs behind those conscious ones that rise up from within and then we can start to explore that new, tip that toe into the unknown.

Who knows where it will take us?

 

Click on any of the tags below to be surprised by older content from this blog

allowing anxiety A to Z Challenge Authenticity Being An Outsider Being Human change creating your reality Creative Inspiration creativity Divine Love Embracing What Is Enjoying The Present Moment fear Forgiveness and Healing Giveaways Guest Posts Inspirational Inspirational Quotes Inspired Writing and Dreaming law of attraction Let Go And Trust Life's Illusions Mens Health messages from spirit Mindfulness Natural Health and Beauty On Being An Outsider Prosperity Consciousness Reading Room Resistance Reviews Sacred Love Sacred Solitude Self-Love spirituality Stop Sugar Craving Sugar-Detox Sugar-Free Recipes Sugar Addiction Sugar Craving The Spiritual Path Vulnerability Wealth and Abundance Womens Health