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 <title>Joyful Heart Foundation - overcoming pain</title>
 <link>https://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/tags/overcoming-pain</link>
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 <title>1in6 Thursday: Reusing Pain</title>
 <link>https://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org/blog/1in6-thursday-reusing-pain</link>
 <description>&lt;div class=&quot;field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-items&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item even&quot; property=&quot;content:encoded&quot;&gt; &lt;p&gt;I hate it that I was sexually assaulted and physically beaten as a child. So many times, I&#039;ve wished it hadn&#039;t happened. But it did happen.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Despite the fact that I&#039;ve been on the healing path for years, I continue to learn about myself and how my painful childhood has carried into my adult years. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One significant fact has emerged from struggling with my past: I&#039;ve learned to reuse my pain. That may not be a sophisticated way to say it, but it helps me to think of it like that. Recently, people have said many nice things to me about being a good listener, encouraging them and being compassionate.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a long time I tried to stop them and say, &quot;That&#039;s not who I am.&quot; I knew my heart and when I thought about qualities such as compassion, I&#039;d grade myself about a C minus. I&#039;m sure that&#039;s because I still struggled with my lack of self-esteem.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Over the years, I&#039;ve learned to listen to the compliments from others—especially when I hear them more than once. For instance, about ten years ago, another writer named Rhonda Ray called me sweet. Her words shocked me. Immediately I thought of the unkind, harsh things I&#039;d said about others. I shrugged and reminded myself that Rhonda didn&#039;t know me well. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Shortly after that encounter, a woman who had been a member of a church where I had pastored  for ten years said, &quot;You are really a gentle person.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Gentle? Me? That word just didn&#039;t fit my self-image, because I knew myself too well. Over the next few months, people described me as kind and thoughtful.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One day I asked my wife, &quot;Have I changed drastically within the past few months?&quot; I told her about some of the comments.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Shirley laughed and said, &quot;They&#039;re true. You&#039;re finally learning to believe those things about yourself.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#039;m extremely uncomfortable even now in writing this, but from the compassionate words of others, I&#039;ve learned that some of them know me better than I&#039;ve known myself. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Or the way I think of it, I&#039;ve learned to reuse my pain. That may sound like an odd jump in logic but it works like this. I received little kindness as a child. Or perhaps I hurt so much, I was afraid to believe or trust anyone who showed any kindness. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;One day I had one of those moments of enlightenment. I realized that I gave to others what I wanted others to give me. As simple as that sounds, my thinking changed dramatically. How can I do that? How can I embrace others when I can&#039;t embrace myself? And yet that&#039;s what I was already doing.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;My biggest moment of insight came when I looked at what I&#039;ve done as a professional writer. My most successful books are those I&#039;ve written about other people. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;What I hear from others is that I know how to get into the heart of those about whom I write. That still shocks me because I have no idea how I do that but I assume those who say such kind words mean them.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Thus I&#039;ve reused my pain. As a child, one way I learned to avoid regular beatings from my dad was to become sensitive to his moods. I was probably too young to figure out that Thursday—the day before his payday—was the worst time. My dad was a functional alcoholic. Each day when he came home from work, I could tell just from the way he walked and the expression on his face whether I needed to hide. I couldn&#039;t have put that into words but intuitively I knew. That was part of my coping.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As a collaborator, I&#039;ve often been drawn to the stories of underdogs, of those who shouldn&#039;t have achieved, but they do. As I listen and try to put their emotional responses in print, I sometimes smile and say to myself, I&#039;m reusing my pain to help others. &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/sites/default/files/blog/Blog-Logo-1in6-New-Body.png&quot; width=&quot;196&quot; height=&quot;260&quot; style=&quot;float: left;&quot; class=&quot; no-shadow&quot; /&gt;&lt;em&gt;- By Cecil Murphey&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;Cecil Murphey wrote&lt;/em&gt; When a Man You Love Was Abused&lt;em&gt; and &lt;/em&gt;Not Quite Healed&lt;em&gt; with survivor Gary Roe. Murphey is the author or coauthor of more than 130 books including international best-sellers,&lt;/em&gt; 90 Minutes in Heaven&lt;em&gt; and&lt;/em&gt; Gifted Hands: the Ben Carson Story&lt;em&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;The mission of 1in6 is to help men who have had unwanted or abusive sexual experiences in childhood live healthier, happier lives.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;1in6&lt;/em&gt;′&lt;em&gt;s mission also includes serving &lt;/em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://1in6.org/family-friends-partners/&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;family members, friends and partners&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;em&gt; by providing information and support resources on the web and in the community.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;Joyful Heart and 1in6 invite you to visit &lt;/em&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.1in6.org/&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;1in6.org&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;em&gt; for info, options and hope, and to learn more about our partnership and Engaging Men initiative &lt;a href=&quot;/programs/education-awareness/engaging-men/1in6-partnership-and-1bluestring&quot;&gt;here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;p1&quot;&gt;&lt;em&gt;The views expressed above are not necessarily those of the Joyful Heart Foundation or 1in6.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field field-name-field-blog-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-items&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item even&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog-category/our-issues&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;Our Issues&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item odd&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog-category/sexual-assault&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;Sexual Assault&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item even&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog-category/child-abuse-and-neglect&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;Child Abuse and Neglect&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item odd&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog-category/engaging-men&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;Engaging Men&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item even&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog-category/our-partners&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;Our Partners&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item odd&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/blog-category/1in6-thursdays&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;1in6 Thursdays&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-label&quot;&gt;Tags:&amp;nbsp;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-items&quot;&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item even&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/tags/survivors-stories&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;survivors&amp;#039; stories&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item odd&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/tags/engaging-men&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;engaging men&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item even&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/tags/healing&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;healing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;field-item odd&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;/tags/overcoming-pain&quot; typeof=&quot;skos:Concept&quot; property=&quot;rdfs:label skos:prefLabel&quot; datatype=&quot;&quot;&gt;overcoming pain&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</description>
 <pubDate>Thu, 26 Jun 2014 18:12:56 +0000</pubDate>
 <dc:creator>1in6org</dc:creator>
 <guid isPermaLink="false">31842 at https://www.joyfulheartfoundation.org</guid>
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