Grateful for Insights, Even With Pain

Sometimes insights hurt. The back of my neck acted up last weekend, in response to some health issues with DH I was powerless over. That pain told me I was trying too hard to have power in a powerless situation. I was working against myself, and taking too much responsibility for someone else's suffering. 

This weekend, I have had the same headache and it is lasting longer, even though I am more conscious and my life is more manageable in many ways today. (We've worked through the worst of the health setback).  This weekend I am not looking for help outside of me. This is huge. I usually call folks or do a lot of writing. I have done almost none of either.  Instead I have shown up face-to-face.

I'e talked and reached out to share my ESH, in daily sharing in my primary program,  even when I am not at my best. That sharing solutions has often helped me to pull myself out of many slumps. 

But last night my husband asked me this, remarking, that my way of sharing seems to be not working for me as well as it used to. He said, "Why do you continue to do XXX? I just heard you tell me it causes you to suffer."

It was the beginning of an ah-ha moment, that became a deeper and deeper awareness that I shared with him as we were dropping off to sleep last night. 

For a long time I have struggled with not feeling like I was enough, as a mom, as a writer, as a wife. It really all started with not feeling enough as "little V" when I was a little girl. I knew this intellectually. And I have felt in physically, when at night I nurture my little child. But I realized last night, that she is not all healed yet. I've gone a little deeper, that only a headache could take me. Last night I felt her in me, as I soothed my headache.  

I suddenly realized "Little V" had been valiantly trying  to earn people's love (even mine) by being so excellent!  Her feelings of frustration, WITH ME,  were causing me at least some of the pain I was feeling in the back of my neck Friday night, and all day yesterday. That pain seems to be sticking around for me. My usual physical self-care is not resolving it. Maybe it is remaining here with me because the pain is an invitation  to love and accept my inner child's efforts. 

Could the pain be helping me realize I don't need to silence it, but rather accept myself, even when I am in pain?