My teeth cringe when I even read the word. Tooth pain or earache pain are my worst sources of pain. Physical anyway. Physical pain has an advantage over emotional pain because with physical pain there appears to be an end to the discomfort. Of course the times I’ve been writhing in sweat and curled up in a ball; I never thought there would be an end. In fact very soon after I met my current husband I had an infected tooth which was so bad he had to take me in the night to an emergency dentist. It sort of cemented my endearment of his kindness.
Of course if we had our choice in life we would choose door number 2: no pain. But as the saying goes: no pain no gain.
Some might say that pain represents something that needs healing. Otherwise we would be a robot right? After years of wondering why does someone choose drugs despite so many negative consequences; I finally came to the realization that substance use and alcohol are coping skills for stress and pain.
I was impressed to read this blog by Paul Noires:
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐖𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐖𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐅𝐞𝐞𝐥:
Paul Noiles
I’ve learned on my healing journey that emotions don’t disappear when we ignore them—they get stored in the body.
I spent years running from how I felt. Pushing it down. Numbing out. Pretending I was fine. But the truth is that pain doesn’t go away — it just goes deeper. It gets trapped in the nervous system, in the body, in our energy. And over time, it shows up as stress, illness, disconnection, and reactive outbursts we can’t explain. And addiction is one way to deal with this pain. But I also had many other ways, like emotional eating, lying to others about how I was doing, and many other ways that I thought were clever.
Every time I got triggered, it wasn’t because something was wrong with me — it was my body trying to say: There’s something here that needs to be felt. Something that needs to be released.
I used to believe that feeling my pain would destroy me. But I’ve discovered this: the real damage came from not feeling it.
Something shifts when we allow ourselves to feel—even when it’s hard or even when it hurts. We stop carrying the past in our muscles, we stop reacting to old wounds, and we create space for peace, clarity, and real power.
So here’s the choice I try to make every day: to feel it instead of fleeing it, to face it instead of fake it. Because I know now what we feel, we can heal.
And that’s where our freedom lives.
– Paul Noiles
I think this is so telling of the mindset of those struggling. This is why I always preach about shaming.
Shaming and addict does nothing but elicit defensiveness and distance
This is a Post I wrote a few years ago about how words matter. Of course it takes us awhile to get past our own pain and disappointment to be able to not react to all the behaviors that come with addiction. It takes a lot of intention and practice to have meaningful non- harmful conversations with people who push all our buttons. If we can develop a heart of compassion it makes that process easier.
As always, I appreciate any support for my new and first book!
