3.13 When doing better releases past pain

Once I dragged myself out of the Sacrificial-Savior Operating System and got myself settled into the Deep-Nurturance OS, I was doing so much better and I was so happy.

But I experienced…

Eruptions of pain.

Why? Where were they coming from? I didn’t understand. I couldn’t explain it. This seemed all wrong.

Finally I realized this was…

Pain from the past.

Through all those years when I was under the spell of the SSOS, I couldn’t let myself feel how bad my work was hurting me. I couldn’t let myself feel the pain I was in because I didn’t have any way of dealing with it. So…

I suppressed it.

I couldn’t figure out what else to do with it.

But now that I was okay, and more than okay, I could feel it and so I did. And…

I needed to feel it.

I needed to release it and process it and work my way through it so I could put it behind me.

This pain, then, was not a sign I was doing something wrong. It was a solid, trustworthy sign I was doing better. I was in a strong enough now to allow the past pain to become conscious. Which allowed me to deal with it in a forthright, effective, and nurturing way.

Still I wasn’t thrilled to have this big release of pain. It was raining on my DNOS parade.

Except…

I realized this pain was a blessing.

How so?

On any day when I got to feeling the DNOS was too hard, and started thinking about letting myself slide back into the old ways…

All I had to do was remember this old pain.

And instantly I’d get my moxie back and get my act together and take a stand for myself and recommit to the DNOS and refuse to let myself get tugged even one step backwards.

So…

This pain, the memory of it, was now protecting me.