Our Identity, Our Pain

“Who could you be if you could live without the identity of your pain?” This is a question that comes out of my mouth time and time again. I’m sure those who have taken classes with me, and who have worked along side of me are sick to death of hearing me say it. 

In the course of healing (and not just pacifying) our wounds we are faced with a reality that so few of us consider when we first seek to start a path of healing. When a pain is healed, truly and completely, it’s effects no longer plague us. We are able to let go completely of the memories, the ways it has hindered our progress in life, and all the other side affects it has created in our lives. No one really ever considers what that really means to let go, and move forward. 

For many of us, our long standing pain becomes a part of us, to the point where we tend to identify ourselves as the part of us that is wounded. We say things like, “I am depressed” or “I am sick” because in some way we have accepted these states of being as part of us rather than something we are experiencing. This gives us a false sense of self, and this false sense of self can make recovery difficult, no matter how bad we may want it. 

I have heard people say countless times, when they are taking prescribed antidepressants, “I just don’t feel like myself anymore”, and because they want to “feel like themselves” again, they will cease taking them. If we could learn who we were outside of the experience of our pain, we could see that nothin could be further from the truth. 

This isn’t just an inside job, our environment and the people in our lives also help to keep us in these deluded states of self awareness. I have had people in my life who have had a hard time with me after I have made a positive change in my life. To the point that when I slip up and fall into negative patterns of thinking or behaving they will say, “oh, there you are!” No, I’ve been here the whole time, you just have yet to notice me for who I am. 

So then who are we if not defined by our various states of pain? As part of my life coaching teachings the first thing that we try to do is figure that out. So how do we figure out who we actually are? We begin by trying to answer the question, “who are you” without using things that you do to describe yourself. 

Kinda hard isn’t it?

So before this turns into a 150 page paper about the benefits of life coaching, lets get back to the original question, “who could you be if you could live without the identity of your pain?” The reason I ask this is because through the process of healing our pain and remediating all the ways in which that pain shows up in our lives many people feel the absence of what was once there. When you feel so strongly that many of your poorest behaviors are a part of who you are then it becomes hard, and almost seems empty, or scary to live without the compulsion to live them out. 

This can be a really tough thing for some of my more successful clients to experience. Who are you when you don’t have the excuse of your disease to bail on plans or call off your other responsibilities in life? Who are you when you have to show up and be accountable for your actions and no longer can make excuses? I’ll tell you, you are a whole person capable of owning their actions and taking personal responsibility. You are mature. 

So the inherent danger in letting our wounded selves be a component of our identity is that it presents one more road block to our potential for recovery. The refusal to let go of our wounded self creates a resistance that often manifests as excuses as to why we no longer need to heal. We are fine living with our pain. Still, it haunts us by corrupting our thought patterns and our decision making, which ultimately results in poor behavior. This process is the root of something that refer to as trauma patterning. 

Trauma patterning is something that those who have been deeply wounded through their lives do, despite their best interests sometimes, in an effort to protect themselves from incurring more hurt. Which at it’s core isn’t inherently bad. The intent is to allow the self to feel safe when entering a potentially damaging situation, the trouble is that the pattern seems to persist even when there is no danger present. As it develops to this level the self begins to adopt avoidant behaviors that end up being detrimental to our ability to lead happy lives and maintain healthy relationships. We live governed by our fear, and our fear as a ruler tends to be unfair and allows so little room for our ability to be happy. 

Often times when we are living in our trauma patterning, these are the behaviors that many people mistake for us being our true selves. So letting go of these defenses can be really uncomfortable who are used to us acting in certain ways. We tend to put each other in boxes of neatly packaged defenses, and we or others behave in a way that does not fit this program we want to urge people to fall back into what we perceive to be normal. 

So how then do we escape our patterns? The first thing we need to do is to identify and heal the original pain that birthed this pattern. There are so many roads to healing these wounds we live with. I cannot say that any method is better than any others. I think the reason why we have so many available options is because we are each so different and require personalized methods. The answer may not be one specific method, but rather a marriage of various methods working together for the same goal. Once we can heal the original wound, then the patterns we created around them will cease to have a function, and they tend to fall apart on their own. Like a child who no longer needs his blanky to feel safe at a strangers house, one day you realize you no longer need it, and it gets left behind. 

When we are living in our most authentic healed self we are confident, certain, and open to living outside of our comfort zone. We have left our fear behind because it is no longer overseeing the need for us to protect our wounds. So how much of your identity is wrapped up in your pain? How much of who you are is just the manifestation of your trauma living out an outdated pattern? If you could set all that down, and just walk openly and freely into your experience with your life, what would that look like? Who could you be, if you could live without the identity of your pain? You would be the authentic, loving, most mature version of yourself. Making choices that with each day take you to living your best life.