What if pain is part of the journey?

Yesterday I had a mail conversation with a man who wanted to annul/cancel a online-course he had bought.
It was the first something like it has happened to me.
*And I was a bit stupefied, because how can you even have the idea to annul a digital ”product”? *
And then old wounds opened, feeling of being rejected surfaced, and neurotransmitters and hormons where activated in my system. And I shrunk.

Well we sorted the thing out, and then, minutes later, he sent me a new mail, where he asked me to stop sending my newsletters to him (At the bottom of every letter, is an opt-out-possibility, just one click away…) And it felt like this was his way of pressing the knife in the wound. And my interpretation, my fantasy went: ”I hated your course and don’t want use it, I want my money back, and now I hate you for this conversation, and now I want to cancel you” (to use a very popular expression in SoMe at the moment).

I had strong bodily sensations of uneasiness, when the neurotransmitters and hormones, tried to take over. I really felt how my primal brain wanted me to go into fight-flight-freeze mode. Today I have the ability to not drown in this cascade of. movement inside. I am able to witness the inner storm, and how easily I could just let go, and going into victimhood or misery.

And I less and less often choose to fall into that hole, because down there, I believe that I am all what happens in my body, and I might, for a longer or shorter time act and feel like a victim.

So I stand there beside the hole. My body is in uproar, and I breathe. I breathe myself back to my center. But the uneasiness is lingering for a couple of hours.

I need to lay down for a bit, breathing, feeling what’s happening in my body. Being in a sort of existential pain. And slowly, slowly, there comes a relaxation, and I stand up, and my mind is more clear, and the neurotransmitters seems to rest to - it’s like they finally know that they don’t need to protect me from this pain.

And then there is another angle to it. It’s the voice of my inner critic. It was loud yesterday. It said: ”But, Charlotte, you have done all these courses and trainings, you should be immune to what others think of you and your work by now. This is really a proof that nothing has really happened inside you. You still act as a victim”.

And I hear the judgmental voice inside. I know about is mission. It will spare me from pain. But today, I am able to meet pain. I am able to witness what’s happening inside me. I am able also to feel this uneasiness, without trying to distract myself with coffee, wine, training or sex. I have the capacity to harbor it. And this capacity, to live a life where pain is included (but not invited), creates a sort of freedom.

I don’t need to be so scared to be in pain. And I know it will pass, and that I have a possibility to learn something from the pain-episode.

Now, yesterday, there was sort of a repetition, something that comes up now and then, something that is probably part of my core wound - the fear of being excluded. I know my teachings isn’t for all, and this was an example of that. And maybe there is an insight to grab: My teachings isn’t for everyone. And maybe it’s good for me to have the NOs once in a while. Maybe that can help to make my message clearer to myself.