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The Pain We Carry
- Feb 14
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 15
And the Lives We Build Around It
There was a NY Times Daily podcast last week that I can’t stop thinking about. It was entitled “When Anesthesia Fails and the Patient is Cut Open” and was about women who feel pain during C-sections and the lasting psychological trauma this causes.
Toward the end of the episode, the host, Rachel Abrams, made this observation:
"I’m tearing up thinking about my own mother. When you say, women are just used to doing a million different things for the sake of their child, including not thinking about their own pain, that’s almost a metaphor for the experience of motherhood."
That line stayed with me.
Because the truth is, so many mothers—and so many people—carry pain they never fully process. Not just physical and emotional pain like an unanesthetized c-section, but also the small disappointments, fears, betrayals, shame, losses, or aches of feeling unseen or unfulfilled-- the pain we experience throughout everyday life.
It's the death by a thousand cuts of small things that build into a bigger wound that lives on in our nervous systems and shapes how we see the world.
These wounds influence:
The chances we take—or don’t take
The risks we’re willing to tolerate
The relationships we choose
The boundaries we fail to set
The dreams we quietly talk ourselves out of
Unrequited pain keeps us scared. It keeps us small. It keeps us quiet.
Not because we’re weak, but because we’re human. Reopening old wounds is scary.
So instead, we build lives around our pain. We create limits. We adopt beliefs like:
“This is just how life is.”
“I shouldn’t ask for more.”
“I don’t want to rock the boat.”
“I should be grateful for what I have.”
And slowly, those beliefs begin to shape who we become.
The Body Remembers What the Mind Tries to Forget
The nervous system doesn’t operate on logic. Even when we tell ourselves we’re “over it,” as Dr. Bessel van der Kolk wrote an entire book about: “the body keeps the score.”
Unprocessed experiences get stored as tension, anxiety, reactivity, or shutdown. They show up as:
Overwhelm
Chronic stress
Emotional triggers that feel bigger than the moment
A sense of being stuck or disconnected
A quiet but persistent feeling that life could feel better than this
Releasing Pain from Your Body
There are many ways of excavating pain from continually living inside of you. There's therapy, EMDR, one-on-one coaching, or supportive groups like "Manifestation & Momentum." (The next series begins in April!)
And then there's conscious connected breathwork, a modality that has changed my own life and one I offer my clients.
Breathwork isn’t about forcing yourself to relive trauma. It’s about creating a safe, supported space where the nervous system can release what it’s been holding. Many people describe breathwork as:
A clearing out
A reset
A release of emotions they didn’t even know were there
A return to themselves
It’s less about digging up the past—and more about making space for the future.
(If you are interested in trying conscious connected breathwork, click here.)
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Once we begin to release our stored pain, something interesting happens.
We gain clarity.
We can start to ask deeper questions:
What actually matters to me?
Where am I out of alignment?
What parts of my life feel nourishing—and what parts feel draining?
If fear weren’t in the driver’s seat, what would I choose?
This is where we can shift from leading a pain-driven life to one led by the values we hold dear.
Choosing a Values-Driven Life vs. One Dictated by the Pain we Carry
When we identify our core values and look honestly at how we’re living, we can begin to gently realign our lives. Not in a dramatic, overnight transformation—but in small, intentional shifts.
By reacquanting yourself with the values that are most important to you, as well as honing in on areas of life you feel most stuck, you are shifting from a pain-driven to a values-driven way of thinking and living. Old, unprocessed pain can hold you back in really important areas of your life including:
Relationships
Career or purpose
Health
Personal growth
Fun and creativity
Environment
Finances
Community/ Connection
An Invitation:
When we release the weight of pain we may be carrying (even unconsciously), we free up energy. And with that energy, we can begin to live more intentionally—guided by our values instead of our fears or pain.
If this post resonates and/or you’ve been feeling:
Overwhelmed
Stuck
Disconnected from yourself
Or quietly aware that you’ve been carrying more than you’ve ever processed
You’re not alone.
And you don’t have to keep carrying it all by yourself.
If you’re curious about starting to break out of a pain-cycle you may not even have known you've been living in, I have a few upcoming opportunities:
Breathwork
Values Workshop
Interested in looking more deeply at your own values? I have a Values Workshop on Feb 24 at 5:30 p.m. ET: A 90-minute reflective workshop to help you reconnect with your core values, go deeper on assessing the balance of your life, and walk away with more clarity around what truly deserves your time and energy.
Click here to learn more and/or register.
Manifestation & Momentum
A New Manifestation & Momentum Series
Beginning April 6
Live, Personalized Small-Group Coaching to Help You:
- Clarify what you truly want in the year ahead
- Understand what’s been getting in the way
- Reconnect with your values and your voice
- Build habits and boundaries that support your well-being
- Create momentum toward a life that feels meaningful
~ Every other Monday from 6:30- 8 p.m. ET: 4/6 4/20 5/4 5/18 6/1 6/15
Click here to register or learn more.
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These are gentle, supportive spaces to:
Release what’s been building
Reconnect with yourself
Clarify what truly matters
And begin living in a way that feels more honest and aligned
Because motherhood—and life—will always include moments of pain. But we don’t have to carry it all forever.
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