Pain always has a purpose to serve - when we find ourselves getting stuck in traumatic cycles across years, or trapped in disease or addiction, here is the question to ask from yourself:
How is this disease/addiction/harmful choice SERVING me?
In the podcast we give an example of this woman who goes to an Energy Healer for her cancer - The Healer works on woman's core beliefs and helps her heal it - The woman comes back after a few months - "the cancer is back" she says, and so the healer asks, "Go inside and tell me how is this cancer serving you"
In a meditative state, this is what the woman reveals:
"My husband has never been there - he travels a lot and I have wanted him with me for a long time - since this disease, he stays with me, takes care of me - this cancer is making him stay" Do you want to heal, the Healer asks - No - replies the woman - No.
Learning our beliefs, talking to our pain and trauma like one would talk to another person, helps - the pain reveals why it is there and how it is serving us - we understand it , accept it and release it.
For me personally, here is what my pain has shown me: I have chosen dysfunctional relationships over and over again, where I was made to feel "less" to learn about my true self worth - Once I understood it, I began to feed my soul with things that nurtured it independent of another human being - flowers, music, poetry, literature, travel, writing, meditating , nature.
I can't say that my choices became healthier overnight - I have discovered that with lifelong beliefs, once we "heal" one, it begins to hide under multiple other "reasonings" and we still end up making those unhealthy choices again but this I promise: because you have uncovered one pattern, it takes just a little a bit of time for the other patterns to reveal themselves and this time, the journey is not as long, nor as intense -
Take that first step - sit with your core story of pain - whether it is that of abuse or addiction or disease and have a conversation with it - see what it has to say - it will speak - it will - and from that point begins the journey-
Healing - Self - Growth