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Nonfiction often fails to adequately describe the depth and breadth of various links to inner pain. Myths, stories or tales often explore the spiritual basis of pain. Get Free will include a fictional section and some poetic parables to share multifaceted themes. With my degree in religious studies, some training in writing, and pivotal experiences from life, I hope to provide usable understandings for a necessary reality in life—pain.
Who is this book for? Why be interested getting free from pain? Is there enough pain from the television news, sirens, hushed cries for help, or from burning aches that smother hopes and dreams?
Realize more about pain; then take steps to get free. Though multifaceted, most pain feels like unpleasant sensations. Now, intimately touch or strum fabric from repressed, avoided emotion.
The personification of pain starts with whispers. “I'm right here. As season change autumn reds into the grays of perception, I wait for you to dye yourself in darkness. Extract me from a single tear. Witness how I disguise myself in unconquerable mountains, your personal peak from which you might never see the heights of your potential. Go ahead, try to peer over my horizon. Attempt to dream about how good and grand your life can be. You'll be buried in my rubble! Chipped bones lugged on your shoulders lost the marrow of self-worth. You pray to just reach retirement, to peacefully age; but you've held onto my essence for too long. Now is the time to again prove your worthlessness. Home provided no comfort for children as I shuffled the dust of hope beneath your sole, and evaporated every opportunity for real peace. Try to really love, before unbandaging past tears. Release a deluge, stacked from memorable storms. Who runs from floods of hurt and self-pity? Careful, for I'll drown your values, make you useless and small!
“Relax. Make your bed nice and neat. Pray that I won't escape through sheets at night and attack your dreams. Yeah, you'll mistake me for the source of nightmares, but I'm only the flesh and bone of your worst fears. Because of me your heart rots. Now passes on disease to family and friends. Then stare into the mirror of your beloved companion. My fangs protrude from teeth in your words. Think about your arguments. Watch me take control and suck blood from your invisible scars. I enter and spread from neglected or rejected wounds, whether opened from a genetic heritage or your mistakes where you injure another. Indeed, I often scream, ‘Now I'm your responsibility. Deal with me!'
“Come on, try again. Ruffle that comfortable, safe reality. I'll tear this fantasy world to shreds! Dread sleep. Discover insomnia. Then I'll force you to brew a cup of MY coffee. For a minute I'll allow you to pretend that I'm not in the mug you drink from. Whether or not you see me in the brown cream, milk, or straight black, I'm real. Stir Monday and every day into your mourning. Taste me, everywhere!
“So you think you conquered me last Friday morning? You really believe you have power over my purpose in your life? Here's news for you. My surprise can overtake! My ultraviolets will burn at noon. Come closer. Realize my purifying purpose. If you neglect responsibility and shove me to the next generation, I'll ultimately regurgitate your rubble and tear through threads you try to organize into a successful life.
“I know you never asked for pain. You told me ten times to the power of your ten that you'd rather die than take more of me. I was thorns in sides of your progress. I hurt. My voice agonized as I appeared to be the essence of crime, robbing your precious time. Your artificial means force me into phantoms of addiction. Consume alcohol for fallacious sips of freedom. Pop prescription pills. Shake hands with pharmacists of counterfeit cures. Illusive windows remain smeared as my claws lock around throats when you struggle to try to breathe fresh air. Some call me various cancers: their reason for not wanting to hold on another year, month, day, or even another second! Some successfully overcome my chemotherapies. Do you want to kiss my lips? Do you? For whenever I get near, your shivers start. Close your eyes. Pray I'll disappear or realize the power of transformation.
“You want to ask me a question? Do I ever cry myself? Do I feel the pain dished out, or how you rarely enjoy a meal without a sip from my bitter cup? Do I lie, waiting to trick you? Do I break hearts? Do I know true love? Do I run away from myself when the going gets too intense? Do I ever create fantasies where I'm in a character who flows down the river of life unscathed? I believe in fairy tales where the wicked one is overcome and the prince of peace and the princess of belief are forever married. I know the trouble I've been, yet I recognize those miracles you've read about. I'll cast out my bad parts and leave the sweetest memories of how good it can be after the bad is lived with just long enough to understand the pain of others. I'll promise that you'll never have to wear the dark part of my face again. I'll guarantee that once past my mountainous hurtles, you'll see an eternal peak of love and happiness. I know the stream of fulfillment and the lake of self-reflection. I know the answers to your questions and each link in your chains. I can see far into the future and past as it cycles through eternity to understand how pain is a principle to assist personal growth and development.
“You complain about my black and white reality. Maybe there's only one way for you to listen and learn more about me. Allow stories to guide you through some of the most painful and beautiful scenes you could ever dream possible. I'll lead you by your heart into palaces of feeling, to blissful peaks you always wished for. Trust the word and hold on. Writings on what you've considered your wall can show you the other side of my mountain. Perceive this dimension of me and treasure rainbow tears as your prized possessions. Precious sunsets to conclude laborious days. Personalized treasure chests for stars, shared with those you love the most. Comprehend my purpose and solidify plans to partake in this work and glory. Envision a land where the fruit from pain blossoms with sweetness. Taste knowledge and ask if the bitter bends are worth it. Scales of trial and effort emerge like collar bones supporting thoughts. Be the weight of wisdom. Discovered gold in your experiences. Polish diamonds of compassion, grown from compressing comprehension in the coals of pain and suffering. My heart is part of your heart. Refrain from accusing me, judging me a liar when I only ask for trust.
“Again, come closer. View endless prisms, reflecting beauty from so many perfect days. Let me guide you pivotal recollections where we trace what appear to be wrong roads or the cobblestones that soles get stuck between. Listen from inside. Discover crystals, precious metals and jewels within deep crevices your bound to uncover if you trust me. Future joy is available when my words transform. After you read and felt potency from my pages, I'll put you to sleep with my time-proven lullaby, where I love you as much as you can possibly hate me. I love you so much I'm willing to allow you to experience your capful of pain. I'll also understand how you curse at me, yet trust you'll make right decisions, even if encumbered by the forceful aches of agony. I care this much for you. Give me your broken heart and even fuel from your expectations. I promise to treat you with care as you forge a straight and narrow path that develops into curves of an incredible human being.”
Let's continue the journey and further understand what pain is all about; the road filled with “black” and “white” and every shade of color in between. If distracted while reading, you may be avoiding some issue. Experience and grow from pain to get free from chains of attachment. Although pain may be a hard teacher, pleasant treasures are worth it. We can comprehend principles leading to greater happiness and fulfillment.
Momentarily perceive your lifetime as a painting. Have you ever connected to pain in a masterpiece of art? See through the paint of pain with the artist and view the mysterious landscapes of beauty. I've felt the depths of pain with artists, only to be comforted by their work. Though throngs of people may surround, I enter into a vast world of feelings. I not only know how much pain some artists have experienced in order to heal powerful emotions through their work, but I've connected to the pain healed by God through experiences of the world's spiritual masters.
As we get free from chains of pain, life is a feast of fulfillment. Existence revolves around trying to understand and embody wisdom within this world. I have explored beliefs of the major religious traditions, traveled to various countries, and stayed with people from many different cultures. These educational adventures exposed me to risk and personal growth. On one excursion, alone in the Tibetan Himalayas, I found myself unprepared for the weather and nearly froze to death one night. I hung on the edge of death as the result of an accident that occurred traveling along the