2051. Healing Pain, by Becky Douglas, from Meridian Magazine.
Dear Readers of my blog:
I know I haven't put anything new on for a couple of months! I'll tell you briefly why! I was getting close to getting another shot for my hip, where I have a slipped, or herniated disc! I wasn't able to sit at my computer as much. But my life has changed lately!
My husband Wayne was in the Korean War, but was sent to Europe instead of Korea. Because he was in the army during a war time, I have been entitled to a Veteran's Widow allotment, they call it. We applied in June, and in October it became available! So I had planned when I was able to come to Fairfield Village Assisted Living in Layton, Utah. I am grateful for that additional help to pay for this nice place, with a lot of medical care available, and good food, entertainment, a great Branch of the Church, etc. etc. You can look it up on the internet if you'd like!
So I have been here since October 28th, and my dear sister Vina Ruth passed away on October 27th, and I went down on November 1st, and her funeral was on November 2nd, in which I spoke about her. I'll send the information about her in my next blog. I plan to write often in my blog from now on. I'll report on life at age 89, in an Assisted Living!
This article was in Meridian Magazine, and it was so fascinating I thought you'd like it!
Healing Pain
PAIN! Part of everyone’s life experience involves pain. Sometimes excruciatingly. We all experience it in one degree or another; we have shattered dreams, poor health, overwhelming depression, relationship troubles, family troubles, career disappointments, stigma, rejection, a sense of worthlessness or inadequacy, fear, or sense of meaninglessness. I could go on and on listing things that cause us pain.
There are a number of ways to heal pain. I just finished reading one of the best books I have ever read, The Choice, by Dr. Edith Eva Eger. I would heartily recommend it to everyone. Dr. Eger was sent to Auschwitz as a young child. She lost her parents and grandparents there. She nearly lost her own life. Later when freed, she immigrated to the United States where she eventually became a psychologist. Her own path to healing from her personal indescribable abuse at Auschwitz is remarkable and inspirational. She has received international acclaim for her work helping many people to overcome pain.
Reading Dr. Eger’s book made me think about my own personal experiences of working with people striving to overcome debilitating pain in their lives. I decided to share a series of articles about one avenue for healing that is often overlooked: service to others.
My daughter, Amber, was severely bipolar. She underwent years of treatments, working with psychiatrists and psychologists. She spent many months of her life in various mental hospitals, trying to get control of her mania and depressions. She had multiple suicide attempts.
Then an interesting thing happened, we adopted two children from Lithuania. They had both been subjected to a lot of serious familial violence. Jolanta, the 9-year-old was paralyzed from the chest down and was confined to a wheelchair. As a result of the violence in her life, she had become an elective mute. Her brother, Thomas, age 6, was extremely hyperactive with tendencies towards violence.
When they arrived, we put the two siblings in a bedroom next to Amber’s room. Amber immediately bonded with these two abused children. Amber was in college at the time, but in the evenings, she took them out to dinner, she took them bowling at a bowling alley with a lane set up for handicapped children. She took them to movies. She found all kinds of ways to help them adjust to living in a new family, in a new country. She showered them with love.
Amber was a scrapbooker. She taught Jolanta how to scrapbook and together they would stay up late at night making scrapbooks. Our bedroom was above Amber’s room. We would often hear peals of laughter coming from Amber’s room late into the night, as they would scrapbook together. Coming from Jolanta, a child who was an elective mute, this was like sounds from heaven to us.
The most fascinating thing that occurred was the change in Amber. She stopped having debilitating depressive moods. She became cheerful and enthusiastic. She began excelling at school. She was genuinely happy for the first time in more than seven years of treatments with the most sophisticated mental health programs available in Atlanta! Her service to Jolanta and Thomas was doing the impossible: it was healing Amber.
When Amber returned to college in Utah, Jolanta withdrew emotionally and pulled back into herself again. Fortunately, we learned about a program where she could help mentor other younger children who were also struggling with physical handicaps. Once again, we were surprised at how Jolanta also become happier. She began to open up and make some friends with other kids. The magic of healing through service! By this point, I had become “a believer”!
A researcher, Arthur C. Brooks, was fascinated by quantifying happiness and its causes. In his book, Gross National Happiness, he compiled the results of any study he could find that impacted personal happiness. In his book he quotes hundreds of studies. Some of the fascinating studies detailed the following:
Imagine two people who are identical with education, age, religion, politics, sex, and race. The only difference is that one person gives money and volunteers his or her time annually, but the other does neither.
- The data tell us that the charitable person will earn, on average, about $14,000 more per year than the uncharitable person.
- In the year 2000; controlling for education, age, race, and all the other outside explanations for giving and income increases, a dollar donated to charity was associated with $4.35 in extra income.
- One survey of Americans shows that people who give money charitably, are 43% more likely to say they are “very happy” than non-givers; non-givers are three and a half times more likely than givers, to say they are “not happy at all.”
- Volunteers are 42% more likely than non-volunteers to say they are very happy.
- Givers are 25% more likely than non-givers to say their health is excellent or very good.
- Senior citizens who volunteer enjoy a 40% lower probability of dying in a given year than people of the same age and health level.
- In one famous study, researchers at Harvard Medical School conducted an experiment in which a group of 132 multiple sclerosis patients was split into two groups; one group was assigned to act charitably toward members of the other.The researchers found that the givers experienced a “dramatic change in their lives” in confidence, self-awareness, and depression. They enjoyed between three and seven times more improvement than the receivers of the help. The researcher recommended that helping others should be incorporated more routinely into therapy for patients recovering from illnesses.
- Similar studies have shown that directly after donating their time, volunteers have experienced depression relief, immune system improvements, chronic pain reduction, lower blood pressure, and reduced symptoms of indigestion, asthma, and arthritis.
Furthermore, studies have found that the more one volunteers, the greater the benefits.
- Studies have shown that the body releases endorphins (the feel-good hormone) in response to service. Interestingly, those rendering the service had a greater release of endorphins than those receiving the service.
After reading this study, I was excited to call my friend, Amy Antonelli, and share this with her. Amy ran the volunteer program for Rising Star Outreach in India. She and I had commented often with each other about the amazing transformation that seemed to occur with our volunteers in India. We had both noticed that the volunteers often appeared to have had more personal healing than the leprosy patients they were serving. Amy’s reaction to the survey? “Ha, we needed a survey to tell us that? The Gospel has been telling us that for years!”
Weiner goes on and on in his book talking about studies that confirm that those who help lift others, are usually unexpectedly lifted much more in their own personal lives.
The Rev. Billy Graham shared a similar real-life experience in one of his speeches:
To a woman who wrote me of the boredom that came into her life when her children were grown and gone from home, I replied: “In the past, your immediate family needed most of your time and strength. Now you can extend the range of your love. There are children in your neighborhood who need understanding and friendship. There are aged people near you who are starved for companionship, blind people who cannot even enjoy the television you find so boring. Why not get out and find the joy of helping others?”
Weeks later, she wrote again; “I tried your prescription. It works! I have walked from night into day!”
An insightful psychiatrist, Marianne Williamson, wrote, “Many of us feel that we’re hurting from wounds in the past. We are not held back by the love we didn‘t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.”
There is a power inherent in service. It has the remarkable ability to heal pain. I have seen this over and over again in my work in India. It’s a simple solution, but a powerful one.
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