Last night, many disruptions and disturbances were abound. I was itching, scratching, picking, peeling, stabbing, nail poking, twisting and turning left to right in my bed. The demon in the night returned for its fodder.
It was expecting something to prey on, to spiritually harvest any energy it could get. This demon in the night was lurking and made its inevitable strike for its annual harvest. This demon without a name, comes for me every night, however, this night in particular was much different than the others.
This night was much more aggressive, nagging, insistent and rigorous than the other nights I’ve had in quite a while. Over the many hours this went on, twisting and turning, switching sleep positions, scratching the left side and then turning again to scratch the right side, repeating again and again and again.
Sometimes I would go to sleep for a couple hours, then I would be woken up again, by my own itching, scratching and picking. When it gets later in the night my awareness is not fully awake, and so those lay moments I am not dreaming because of my skin that’s pestering me and I am too tired to focus full attention on my skin picking marathon. This period I could call the subconscious period in the night where I am subconsciously picking my skin, my hands are moving on their own and at the same time my mind is half asleep.
For this night, my skin kept me up for most of the night only because the nagging pain was persistent and constant in its severity and measure of pain. At this point after the skin picking marathon was over and gone past, the latter phase in the night where I was woken up and couldn’t fall back asleep I just laid there waiting and accepting this scene to pass.
After waiting long enough to go back to sleep I simply couldn’t, and so I was just accepting what was happening to me in that moment. This feeling so vague to me when the middle of the day comes is suddenly absent and forgotten in my mind. The most painful experience that I was going through instantly escapes my mind and memory when thinking about it through the day.
What I know for sure though is that this nagging pain that my skin was giving me was truly unresting and persistent to the point where I couldn’t ignore it, I couldn’t change it and I couldn’t escape it.
All while this is going on I am subconsciously awake but also conscious enough to realize that I am experiencing immense pain; the itchiness, the skin peeling, the nail scraping, my entire body was having a sensory overload of itchiness and pain, on every part of my body that came in waves. One wave signaled to my buttocks, the other my stomach, my back, legs, shins, hamstrings. There was too many areas that were overloaded with itchiness that I couldn’t keep track of how many places were giving me pain, especially while I’m half unconscious and my body is acting on its own.
What I was aware of however was the pain itself. I started to ask questions. What is this for and what am I feeling. How do I feel, and how will this bring about an outcome? These questions took some thought and attention for me to answer so my awareness was growing in strength. I realized what I’m feeling is pain; I acknowledged what I was experiencing was flat out pain and suffering. The second question took some extra thought; after pondering, I came to the conclusion that this pain was being invoked in order to bring out a string of emotions; to make me rattled and disturbed. But even more than that, these emotions were meant to drive my actions.
With careful thought, this pain I was feeling was trying to bring something out of me. I realized the immense pain I was feeling was simply to make me stronger. It wasn’t that thought that was important to me though, what was fascinating and important to me was the feeling of joyful bliss in that realization. The more pain I was feeling, something clicked in my brain and I realized this incredible amount of pain was to in fact make me stronger, it was meant for me to use as fuel and project me forward.
I could use this pain for my next running session, I could use this pain as fuel for when I write my next thought or emotion. Those outlets are beneficial and have utility however there is something much more profound and blissful in this realization that I had. In that moment when I realized the purpose of all this pain I couldn’t ignore, was to in fact make me stronger, when that clicked in my brain, the immense pain was no longer pain, it was just pure and ecstatic bliss, it was complete and utter joy and suddenly that pain washed away into the overwhelming joy, as if an ocean absorbed the fodder that was pain and washed me away with it.
No longer did I view this sensation of pain as suffering, it wasn’t to tear me down or do harm, it was simply to wake me up to my own strength, my will, it was to strike me like lightning in order to wake me up to the fact that this would make me stronger and that I would use this gift of pain I’ve been given to propel me forward, it was the feeling that was much more precious and valuable than any supplement or external outlet could possibly give.
This feeling was much more blissful and riveting for me to use. Not only that the feeling itself was truly euphoric that I didn’t want it to end, the more pain I was inflicted onto me was more power and more strength that was exciting me.
This pain was exactly what I needed, it was a gift, and a light to propel me forward. Simply asking the questions what am I feeling and what is this for, brought me more joy than I ever felt in my life, this struck me with utter curiosity and excitement that I had to understand this more, I want to tap into this feeling more; it’s the state of being, a state of joyful bliss that gives me complete presence and joy without words, without sound, that strange and familiar feeling without language or thought, that is what I seek. There is nothing in the world I would trade for this incredible feeling.