Unrecognized Pain

Sometimes an unrecognized pain is causing us to act out in ways not in our best interest. Find out how to bring this pain into the light of day in this mini podcast.

Grasshopper Notes are the writings from America's Best Known Hypnotherapist John Morgan. His podcasts contain his most responded to essays and blog posts from the past two decades. 

Find the written versions of these podcasts on John's podcasting site: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1628038

"The Grasshopper" is the part of you that whispers pearls of wisdom that  seem to pop into your mind from out of the blue. John's essays and blog posts are his interpretations of these "Nips of Nectar." Others have labeled his writings as timeless wisdom. 

Most of the John's writings revolve around self improvement and self help. They address topics like:

• Mindfulness
• Peace of mind
• Creativity
• How to stay in the present moment
• Spirituality
• Behavior improvement

And stories that transform you to a wider sense of awareness that presents more options. And isn't that what we all want, more options? 

John uploads these podcasts on a regular basis. So check back often to hear these podcasts heard around the world. Who wants to be the next person to change? 

Make sure to order a copy of John's new book: WISDOM OF THE GRASSHOPPER – 21 Days to Creativity. These mini-meditations take you inside where all your creative resources live. And you'll come out not only refreshed but recommitted to creating your future. 

It's only $16.95 and available at BLURB.COM at the link below. https://www.blurb.com/b/10239673-wisd...

Also, download John's FREE book INTER RUPTION: The Magic Key To Lasting Change. It's available at John's website  https://GrasshopperNotes.com

Transcript

Unrecognized Pain

Have you ever had such physical pain that you couldn’t focus on anything or anyone else? I think we can all come up with a “Yes” answer.

Reminds me of a personal experience . . . 30 years ago I was writhing in pain lying on a hospital gurney in a hospital emergency room. All I could focus on was getting relief from the pain a kidney stone was causing. I couldn’t focus on anything but the pain. I remember saying to myself, “I don’t care if I die, I just want this pain to go away.”

I’m sure you can come up with your version of my story. Lucky for me, I was able to get powerful pain meds and eventually went on to pass the stone. It’s also fortunate that we, as humans, cannot remember the actual, physical pain.

Such is not the case with emotional pain. We can conjure it up at a moment’s notice. We can relive a past incident in our mind and all the attendant anguish and pain can flood our mind and body like it’s happening all over again. The incident is over but the pain lives on.

But there's another aspect to emotional pain: It can be caused by something out of our awareness.

Sometimes that hidden cause causes us to react a certain way, a way we’ve grown accustomed to that may not serve our best interest.

Back to not being able to focus on anything or anybody – someone unknowingly steeped in emotional pain can easily gravitate to becoming a loner. They profess to not need what most other people crave – the company of others. They appear stoic on the surface, but smoldering beneath burns the fire to be included. The sad part of this story is this person may believe the surface them “is just the way I am.”

Unnoticed emotional pain can cause us to act out in ways that just don’t make sense to those attempting to love us. Even though we’re unaware of the pain, we do take actions to numb it. Some turn to abusing alcohol or drugs, others withdraw to isolation to suffer in silence. There are countless ways we attempt to numb what we don’t know about.

So how do we shine the light of day on hidden pain so we can acknowledge its existence – the first step to alleviating it?

Become aware that your repeated, unproductive actions have a cause. You don’t have to unearth the specific cause, just recognize there is one.

Simply acknowledging there’s a cause puts that causative part of you on alert that you’re paying attention. This attention, applied over time, causes what’s causing your pain to incrementally rise to the surface where you can more easily address it.

This process is the same as intuitively knowing there is an answer to a dilemma even though you don’t yet know the answer. (Think Thomas Edison).

Withdrawing from life? Numbing yourself? There’s a cause even though you may not be able to put your finger on it. Having that awareness puts you on a path towards pain alleviation. You'll progress towards including others again, and update your actions so that numbness and isolation are not robotic choices.

All the best,

John