“Pain is good because it gives you the idea that you need to look into yourself. Use the pain.”
Annette Noontil
Yesterday I enjoyed the luxury of receiving a foot massage.
While I was lying back in the upholstered armchair having my tootsies rubbed, my feet felt so good I actually fell asleep and began snoring away.
The fact that I was not consciously savoring every moment greatly disturbed my very generous boyfriend who was paying for me to be spoiled.
Sitting next to me receiving his own foot massage, he wondered what to do.
“Should we wake her?” my boyfriend asked my masseuse.
“Let her rest,” the masseuse reassured my boyfriend.
Many years ago the very idea that I might fall asleep while someone touched my feet would have been an impossibility.
I have a Morton’s neuroma – a tumor on the end of a nerve – on the ball of my left foot.
Interestingly, my mother, now 85, has a Morton’s neuroma on the very same spot on her foot.
So as an adult woman of now age 63 I can honestly still joke, “It’s my Mommy’s fault!”
For years I struggled with chronic foot pain not only due to the Morton’s neuroma but also in both feet.
During this time I realized I had to give up my habit of wearing fabulous high heels.
I gave up jogging and other high impact activities.
I changed my diet, took natural anti-inflammatories, started juicing and wore yoga toe separators.
Foot massage wasn’t just an enjoyable luxury – I had to schedule a foot treatment every week just to be able to walk around without pain.
Often I would wake up with my little trotters hurting so bad I silently said “Ouch ouch ouch!” on the way to the bathroom.
Being a medical intuitive healer, while I was working away at healing the physical causes of my foot pain I simultaneously considered the metaphysical roots.
I’ll net it out for you for those wanting to get to the point.
LEFT FOOT PAIN: SPIRITUAL EXHAUSTION
RIGHT FOOT PAIN: PHYSICAL EXHAUSTION
I knew what I was really dealing with – severe depletion on the physical and spiritual levels.
So when my feet felt so awesome that I could slip away into dreamland while someone worked through my joints I recognized that even though I have gotten older, even though I still have a Morton’s neuroma, I have resolved the core issues and no longer need to suffer from them.
Years ago I was driving down the road one day and received guidance that I should write about the difference between pain and suffering.
First I wrote a blog, then I wrote a book, The Difference Between Pain and Suffering.
The Difference Between Pain and Suffering by Catherine Carrigan, available in paperback, ebook and audiobook
As a medical intuitive healer people come to me for very practical reasons.
They want to solve problems as quickly as possible.
This past week for example I just worked with a gentleman who suffers from chronic foot pain. One foot is too flat, the other suffers from a high arch.
My recommendations for him were lengthy, detailed and practical.
All this can be absolutely necessary and yet I add a big HOWEVER.
We in natural healing can sometimes make our programs so complicated.
The diets. The supplements. The exercises. The decades of therapy – mental, physical, etc.
In the long run this may contribute to our greater good.
Yes, sugar, alcohol, tobacco and caffeine are pro-inflammatory and you may be better off with less of them.
Yes, your joints will thank you if you stop pounding them with high intensity exercise.
But what if we could simply inquire, “What is the real reason I am suffering so much?”
What if we could approach our pain and suffering with the courage of radical, unashamed honesty?
At the time my feet hurt so much I was living with a man who simply wore me out with his lies, his narcissism and his selfishness.
I twisted myself up trying to make him happy before recognizing I had made the wrong choice to be with him.
Once a client came into my office and announced, “Catherine, I’ve made so many mistakes!”
“How old are you?” I asked her.
“Just wait til you are my age. The list will only get longer.”
It’s one thing to know intellectually.
It’s quite another to act on your inner truth.
Recently a client asked for a medical intuitive reading.
Intuitively she kept seeing this shadow around her and wanted to know what it was and what she could do about it.
“That’s your shadow,” I explained to her, “that’s the unprocessed, unresolved aspect of your consciousness.”
A devoted spiritual student, she insisted that in this lifetime she was determined to make it go away – as if we could ever totally 100 percent know everything about ourselves, as if we could have the courage to see all our mistakes, our flaws and foibles.
The totality of it could be shocking, humbling, shaming, even crushing.
How can we hold ourselves in compassionate awareness?
Each of us buries what is often too difficult to face.
You may not consciously want to look at this unresolved aspect of your consciousness but your body is right here right now shouting the truth to you every second of every day.
I will never forget listening to a speech by neuroscientist Candace Pert, author of Molecules of Emotion.
“If you want to know what’s going on in your unconscious mind, just look down at your body,” she said.
No one consciously wants hurt.
But when you do discover yourself in a cycle of chronic pain and suffering, ask yourself a simple question, “How can I use this pain for my highest good?”
This past week I did a medical intuitive reading with a gentleman who had suffered chronic neurological pain in his face.
He had greatly reduced this suffering with a three-week juice cleanse.
He called me because he wanted to know his next steps.
Yes, I taught him yoga for the face, identified two teeth that I received were inflaming the nerves and made many other practical recommendations. The grinding schedule that he quite literally gritted his teeth to bear day in and week out was next for him to reconsider.
He recognized he had been believing it was necessary for him to work hard to be successful.
Now he questioned the truth of that heretofore common sacred assumption.
Do you have what it takes to shine the light on what you have been believing?
“Every belief that I change increases my use of my own power,” the author Annette Noontil once wrote.
Resolving my foot pain proved a lengthy journey.
I had to re-examine my footwear, my exercise, my diet, my relationships, my energy level and my very relationship to being grounded in my body on this earth.
Yesterday I felt so thankful that despite the fact that my feet at age 63 have walked countless more miles they feel so much better than they did in my 40s and even 50s.
The ostensible problem of foot pain had taken me on many deep and meaningful paths ultimately leading to a happier life.
What is healing? Healing happens when we use our pain for our highest good.
To order my books in paperback, ebook of audiobook please visit the Catherine Carrigan Author Central Page on Amazon at this link.
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To set up an appointment for a medical intuitive reading or healing work, please email catherine@catherinecarrigan or call 678-612-8816. If you are calling internationally, please call me at the same number through WhatsApp so I can return your call toll free!
