Читать книгу Above and Beyond - J.S. Dorian - Страница 77

“Hope, that with honey blends the cup of pain.”

SIR WILLIAM JONES

Because my pain often attacks suddenly, it just as suddenly retreats, and then without warning roars back again; combating it requires as much guesswork as strategy. Even when my guesses are on target, the weapons I select from my pain-control arsenal—medication, meditation, or distraction—rarely eliminate the pain entirely but only temper it. To compound the challenge, what works well one day may not work at all the next.

Yet there’s one approach I can always count on. When pain is raging and resistant, I’m better able to cope when I’m at my best emotionally. Having said that, I must quickly add that emotional strength doesn’t come to me out of the blue. It requires cultivation, a willingness to focus on positive expectations rather than negative projections, and a shift in attitude and outlook from desperation to faith.

I’m healthiest emotionally, and thereby better able to transcend pain, when I have strong positive feelings toward others. The times I have feelings of love and appreciation for my friends and family members are the times I experience the deepest sense of well-being.

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

Can I focus less on the physical and more on the emotional and spiritual?