By Stephanie Bucklin
Lately, I’ve been sitting with a question that feels both personal and universal: Do we experience pain because it hurts… or because we expect it to hurt?
Pain is real. I want to say that clearly and without qualification. Chronic pain is not imagined. It lives in the body—muscles, joints, nerves, tissues. It disrupts sleep. It limits movement. It reshapes days and dreams. And yet, pain is also perceived. Somewhere between sensation and suffering, the mind enters. So does memory. So does fear. So does the story we’ve been taught—often long before we had words. I think about how early we learn our relationship with pain.
A one-year-old falls.
- If the adults rush in with panic and alarm, the child learns: This is dangerous. Something is wrong.
- If the adults stay calm and reassuring, the child learns: This happened. I am still safe.
Neither response is a failure. Parenting is human. But the nervous system records these moments. The body remembers how the world responds when we hurt. So I wonder: Do we learn to brace against pain? Do we learn to fear it? Do we learn to override it? Or do we learn to dissociate from it entirely?
And if pain is learned in relationship, perhaps it can also be re-learned—not erased, but held differently.
Living Inside the Ache
I’ve lived with chronic pain for most of my adult life. There are nights when sleep simply doesn’t come—not because I’m not tired, but because pain refuses to let my body rest. I’ve spent countless hours lying awake, breathing, shifting, searching for a position that doesn’t hurt.
Over the years, I’ve gathered tools:
- Progressive muscle relaxation.
- Deep breathing.
- Nervous system regulation practices.
Sometimes they help. Sometimes they don’t.
I use cannabis—not to escape my body, but to soften the edges enough to rest. THC and CBD quiet the volume just enough that sleep can arrive. I don’t spiritualize this. I simply acknowledge it as one way I care for myself.
I’ve also learned how to slip into a meditative state—neither asleep nor awake. A place where pain is still present, but the fight with pain dissolves. Some nights, that leads to sleep. Other nights, I remain there until morning, breathing with the ache, keeping my heart open.
The days that follow can be slow. Cancelled plans. A body that feels heavy. A mind dulled by exhaustion. Sleep deprivation is its own kind of suffering.
Tonight is one of those nights. I’ve taken the muscle relaxer. I’ve used cannabis. I’m still awake. Still in pain. Emotionally stirred enough that sleep may not come at all. This isn’t a failure. It’s part of the human experience I walk inside of.
The Bodhisattva Path Is Not Above Pain
As I step into 50, I’ve come into a deeper acceptance of my body, my disability, and my limits. Acceptance doesn’t mean ownership. And it doesn’t mean surrendering my hope for healing.
I refuse to be defined by pain—but I also refuse to gaslight myself into pretending it isn’t real. Sometimes I don’t have a choice. If I don’t honor my body’s limits, I get hurt. I fall. I lose functional control. So I’ve learned to listen closely. To stop when my body says stop. To build boundaries around my capacity.
This kind of listening has shaped my spiritual path. I don’t walk the bodhisattva path from above suffering. I walk it within suffering—knees dusty, hands open, heart wide enough to hold both sorrow and joy. Pain has stripped me down to what is essential. It has softened me. Slowed me. Made me more attentive to subtle shifts in breath, energy, emotion, and fear. It has taught me how to stay present with discomfort without needing to fix or flee.
This is where my pain and my desire to heal others overlap. When I sit with my own pain without panic, I learn how to sit with another’s suffering the same way. I don’t rush to resolve it. I don’t explain it away. I simply remain. This is not martyrdom. It is presence.
Pain, Perception, and Safety
Reading The Body Keeps the Score helped me understand how deeply pain and trauma are intertwined—how the body carries what the mind cannot always articulate.
As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk writes: “The body keeps the score: if the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera… then talking about it may not be enough.”
Pain is not only about damage. It is often about protection.
Neuroscientist Dr. Lorimer Moseley says: “Pain is not a measure of tissue damage, but a measure of the perceived need to protect.”
That sentence changed how I listen to my body.
If pain is sometimes a signal of threat, what happens when the body learns it is safe again? What happens when fear loosens—even slightly?
Lately, I’ve been practicing breathwork to interrupt fear before it hijacks my nervous system. I’m not eliminating pain, but I am changing my relationship with it. I’m less afraid. And fear matters. When fear softens, perception shifts. When perception shifts, the body has more options.
Healing as a Shared Field
As I’ve stepped deeper into my psychic mediumship and sovereignty, I’ve learned that my sensitivity—so often challenged by pain—is also one of my greatest gifts. I experience oneness not as an idea, but as a felt truth. The way another’s pain echoes in my body. The way another’s light calls my own to respond.
When I work with others, I do not heal from hierarchy. I heal from shared humanity. No transaction. No spiritual superiority. Only love recognizing itself. To the weary—those bent by grief, illness, or a world that forgets how to be gentle—I offer what I have: presence, softness, and healing intention. Not to remove pain. But to remind the nervous system that it is not alone.
My pain does not disqualify me from this work. It is one of the ways I learned how to do it. Healing, for me, is not about conquering the body. It is about partnering with it. Listening to it. Learning from it.
- I am still seeking.
- I am still hopeful.
- I am still listening.
And I remain deeply in love with humanity—with our tenderness, our courage, and our endless becoming. Love is my life’s purpose. Embodiment of love is my highest path.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 🙏💖
Namaste,
~S
Join the Soul Journey Membership (Founding Members)
Healing is not meant to be done alone.
If this reflection resonated with you—if you are navigating pain, limitation, awakening, or the quiet work of learning how to listen to your body and soul—I invite you into a deeper circle of support.
The Soul Journey Membership is a heart-centered healing space for those who are ready to walk their path with compassion, sovereignty, and presence. This is not a program designed to “fix” you. It is a relationship—one that honors your nervous system, your lived experience, and your unique rhythm of healing.
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This founding round is especially meaningful to me. As a disabled practitioner, stabilizing my income allows me to continue offering this work with integrity, spaciousness, and care—for myself and for this community.
If you are seeking a gentle, grounded, soul-aligned container for your healing journey, I would be honored to walk with you.
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You are not broken.
You are becoming.
And you do not have to do it alone. 💜
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