ALLOWING

What is the origin of pain? I don’t mean pain from accidental bumps or burns, but nonphysical pain. What is its origin? Where does it comes from? What is the origin of fear or suffering? Of pressure? Despair? Doubt? Anxiety? Is it that pain is primal and the others, the fallout? Or are the others just variations of pain? I don't know. Truly, I don't know. And would knowing release me from experiencing any of it? I don't know that either, but pain lives in every one of my cells, and I don't want it. I do everything I can to ignore it. I have arranged my life so that pain has the fewest opportunities to come in. I never look its way even though I know it is always there, just beside me. But what if I were to allow the pain? If I were to give it permission to be? Perhaps I could get to know it, and then it might reveal itself as something unexpected. It might not be pain at all. What shall I allow? I allow myself to be touched.