Inhabiting Pain

What if the fastest way through pain isn't around it, but into it?

In this milestone hundredth episode, James continues the Inhabiting Series — following reflections on inhabiting the belief that we are infinitely precious and inhabiting our bodies — by turning to something harder: inhabiting pain and struggle. James names his own instinct, shaped by an Enneagram Seven's pull toward distraction and escape, to anesthetize or outrun discomfort the moment it arrives.

Rather than offering a quick fix, James distinguishes between pain that signals real danger (the kind that sends us to the ER or to a trusted friend, therapist, or coach) and the quieter, heavier pain of disappointment, disillusionment, or grief absorbed from a hurting world. He draws on the wisdom of the desert mothers and fathers — who taught that the struggle we run from in one place will meet us again in the next — to make the case that sitting with pain, naming it, and asking what it has to teach us is itself a spiritual practice.

This is a tender, honest episode about resilience discovered rather than assumed, and about the difference between rushing toward healing and actually arriving there.

In This Episode

Why James moved from the Ripening Series into the Inhabiting Series, and what "inhabiting pain" means as the third installmentThe instinct to anesthetize or run from pain — and why it doesn't ultimately workDistinguishing pain that signals danger from pain that signals disillusionment or griefWisdom from the desert mothers and fathers on carrying struggle from place to placeWhen to sit with pain versus when to seek help from a friend, therapist, or coachFinding resilience and strength on the far side of staying present to struggle