How does spirituality and/or religion help you cope?
I must preface this with the fact that I'm not terribly religious. I know enough of many organized religions to pick and choose bits that seem to resonate, and come up with a conglomeration of my own creation which is incredibly difficult to actually describe adequately to another. Suffice to say, I'm a spiritual humanist.
From Buddhism comes the idea that All is suffering, and that the path to enlightenment is through letting go of the material world. This is almost exactly my philosophy regarding my life with migraines. I'm going to suffer pain. I know and accept this as fact. There's not a time in my life that I can recall not having migraine pain, so I don't particularly object on personal basis but rather on principle.
In order to learn to survive with my chronic migraine, I've just learned to detach from the reality of the pain, and focus on something, anything in my body that is pleasant, neutral, or even just less negative than my head. Then I'm able to gain a bit of functionality back.
From Hinduism, there is ॐ (Om), the primal sound. It's almost as if, at the basis, there is a common element of understanding for all. In my life, it's pain (migraine), and, for whatever reason, I tend to gravitate towards people who have also heard the meaning of pain. Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles is also special to me, as I can think that there's some being out there pulling for me in a way my friends and family can't.
The pagan beliefs which revolve with the sun and moon, with the ebb and flow of power also makes a lot of sense, as the patterns of my migraine pain changes with the changing of the seasons and amount of daylight.
There are many others, but these are three examples of the kinds of things that help me cope.
Quantum in me fuit,
Gretchen
I must preface this with the fact that I'm not terribly religious. I know enough of many organized religions to pick and choose bits that seem to resonate, and come up with a conglomeration of my own creation which is incredibly difficult to actually describe adequately to another. Suffice to say, I'm a spiritual humanist.
From Buddhism comes the idea that All is suffering, and that the path to enlightenment is through letting go of the material world. This is almost exactly my philosophy regarding my life with migraines. I'm going to suffer pain. I know and accept this as fact. There's not a time in my life that I can recall not having migraine pain, so I don't particularly object on personal basis but rather on principle.
In order to learn to survive with my chronic migraine, I've just learned to detach from the reality of the pain, and focus on something, anything in my body that is pleasant, neutral, or even just less negative than my head. Then I'm able to gain a bit of functionality back.
From Hinduism, there is ॐ (Om), the primal sound. It's almost as if, at the basis, there is a common element of understanding for all. In my life, it's pain (migraine), and, for whatever reason, I tend to gravitate towards people who have also heard the meaning of pain. Ganesh, the Remover of Obstacles is also special to me, as I can think that there's some being out there pulling for me in a way my friends and family can't.
The pagan beliefs which revolve with the sun and moon, with the ebb and flow of power also makes a lot of sense, as the patterns of my migraine pain changes with the changing of the seasons and amount of daylight.
There are many others, but these are three examples of the kinds of things that help me cope.
Quantum in me fuit,
Gretchen
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