Habitual Pain and Self-Abandonment

Photo by Jeremy Vessey on Unsplash

The last class I taught ended with one of my top students crying over the realization of habitual pain. Something I channeled in regards to people running around with their heads cut off. Similar to when chickens’ heads are cut off.

Most people go through life not feeling their pain. Some are in shock, but most of the time, it’s a choice — unconscious, but a choice nonetheless.

The chicken’s demise is at the hands of the humans. A human’s demise is usually at the hands of their decisions and choices.

Who should we feel bad for?

As someone who used to feel bad for everyone except herself, I understand the difference between a person who chooses habitual pain and someone in a painful circumstantial crisis. Same, same, but different, they would say in Thailand.

I’ve been in that habitual pain. A slow, but fast, sometimes fun, endless cycle of seeing the world through the eyes of a victim. Through the eyes of, ‘Why me?’ Through the eyes of fear.

Fear is a human emotion that grips many people, keeping them bound within their emotional states, and preventing full growth. That’s why you can meet an emotionally mature 21-year-old and a 56-year-old man who’s never fully embraced his emotional side.

My students’ realization, and that of many people, comes from gaining a clearer perception of their loved ones’ choices. We don’t have a say in what or how they choose to live their lives. All we can do is hold strong as support pillars and be there if they choose to learn the lessons from their mistakes.

However, enabling someone in their habitual pain perpetuates a toxic cycle for both parties. For example, a person who continues to feed an overweight partner unhealthy foods endangers their health. If you substitute food with feeding a partner’s delusion, you continue the toxic cycle.

What I learned in my life is that there is always someone for everyone.

I recently moved to a new city, starting a new chapter. In the past, when I moved to new cities, I befriended anyone and everyone, wanting to make friends and hang out, even if these new friends never added value to my life.

I abandoned myself in these situations as I chose to forgo the red flags to sit in toxic circles. Habitual pain. It was as if I saw the water boiling, I knew the water was hot, and I chose to sit in it and pretend it was a jacuzzi instead of a scalding pot of boiling water. That would burn my skin or worse. Continual for the sake of delusional friendships.

This time around though, I see the pots of boiling water a mile away and have been diverting my path to stay clear of such pain. These pots of boiling water hold others who have chosen to abandon themselves for the sake of their habitual pain. They are choosing to commiserate with each other and that’s okay for them.

Not me.

It takes a minute or two, sometimes lifetimes to see how it was always about choosing ourselves, not anyone else.

This chapter of my life is about choosing me and what my needs and desires are. What and how I choose to live out my existence in a world filled with a chaotic structure. I pray for those who are stuck in their habitual painful cycles, but at the same time, can bless them from afar. Lord knows if you tried to break me in my cycle way back when I would have looked at you like you’re the crazy one.

But who was the crazy one? A person who thinks others are always crazy or the one who chooses not to see the crazy cycle they’re in? P.S. They’re usually both the same person.

The only scalding water I sit in now are the natural hot springs filled with minerals from the Earth.