How do we move through pain?

I have no idea.

I tried reading about it, in books, online, listening to podcasts, and watching videos on YouTube about grief and pain... And I still have no clue.

I even thought I didn't deserve the pain in the first place, but then I read that there's no hierarchy of pain. That's comforting. And I remember Olaf singing "you feel what you feel and your feeling is real", that's also comforting.

It's like I can't swim (this is true), and I'm deep in water where I can see but cannot breathe or talk, and I start to panic. The only way for me to get out of deep water is to start swimming, but I don't know how. Water scares me. Pain is scary.

Meditation helps. Breathwork helps. 

Imagine you were in the CT scan machine, a medical device so big that your body can fit in it. It was a frightening ten-minute period in a cold room with only the machine sound and you in a hospital gown with no one else you know around. You closed your eyes, took a deep breath through your nose counted to 4, holding it for 2, and slowly exhaled counting to 4, holding it for 2, and repeated all that again and again until all you were aware of was your breath.

You did that again with your twenty-five-minute MRI, very loud and unpleasant. And you got through it.

That was your escape. But then you had to get back to life and realized you need to learn how to swim.

"One in four people is mentally unsound."

Dr. Mel Gills TED Talk

Further reading on the above quote: WHO Report 2001

T.