The pain I nurture lies within me on the surface of my heart.

I know this pain and it knows me.

This pain is me – this pain is my experience – this pain is my deepest expression of self.

I have worked out ways to rid myself of this pain, and all of these methods hold for me a  validity and a truth.

I have decided to carry my pain, and to endure its seething hold on me, because at this time in my life, all of the alternatives speak to me of the potential for an even heavier load to bear.

I am grateful for my pain, because it is borne and lives within me as result of my experience for things which I now deny myself.

I know that overtime my pain will ebb and flow, and I know too, that my choices around it have the capacity to change too.

My pain resides within my heart, but it does not own my soul – no – I own my pain,

it lives because I give it life;

it speaks because I give it a voice;

it is heard because I listen to it, and

I feel it, because I give it space in my thinking mind.

The pain I nurture is within, I care for it, because it cares for me.

I have made a friend of my pain, because I know that deep within the longings of my soul, this pain occupies the space which reminds me of

what it is to live;

what it is to love, and

what it is to hope.

William Defoe