The other day I got out the shower and I bend down to reach for a towel, and I felt a sharp pain in my chest. Shot through my chest and up around my shoulder and down my spine. I thought 'Oh, Lord.' I thought I was dying. I bent over and looked, and I was standing on my own titty.
Grief does not end and love does not die and nothing fills its graven place. With grace, pain is transmuted into the gold of wisdom and compassion and the lesser coin of muted sadness and resignation; but something leaden of it remains, to become the kernel arond which more pain accretes (a black pearl): one pain becomes every other pain ... unless one strips away, one by one, the layers of pain to get to the heart of the pain - and this causes more pain, pain so intense as to feel like evisceration.
I have a cat, so I know that when she digs her very sharp claws into my chest or stomach it's really a sign of affection, but I don't see any reason for programming languages to show affection with pain.
Grace is God as heart surgeon, cracking open your chest, removing your heart - poisoned as it is with pride and pain - and replacing it with his own.
In the weeks after 9/11, out of the pain and the fear there arose also grace and gratitude, eruptions of intense kindness that occurred everywhere, a sharp resolve to just be better, bigger, to shed the nonsense, rise to the occasion.
I wonder how biology can explain the physical pain you feel in your chest when all you want to do is be with someone.
The anguish I always feel when she's in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face.
My father died from a heart attack. He was the sort of person who wouldn't complain. The symptoms are not heavy - a bit of chest pain, arm strain, or indigestion. People ignore those symptoms because they think it's trivial. Don't feel afraid to come forward.
Have you ever experienced a pain so sharp in your heart that it's all you can do to take a breath? It's a pain you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy; you wouldn't want to pass it on to anyone else for fear he or she might not be able to bear it. It's the pain of being betrayed by a person with whom you've fallen in love. It's not as serious as death, but it feels a whole lot like it, and as I've come to learn, pain is pain any way you slice it.
And yet, I found I could survive. I was alert, I felt the pain - the aching loss that radiated out from my chest, sending wracking waves of hurt through my limbs and head - but it was manageable. I could live through it. I didn't feel like the pain had weakened over time, rather that I'd grown strong enough to bear it.
I think that being a mother, you would do anything for your children. Their pain is your pain; if they're in pain, you feel their pain.
I think that, being a mother, you would do anything for your children. Their pain is your pain; if they're in pain, you feel their pain.
Survival is as much a matter of grace as fight. The expression, 'grace under pressure' implies the attainment of equanimity and equilibrium. The fundamental durability of the human body surprises us because the pain can be so intense - yet pain is often transient and hides the tremendous effforts the body is engaged in to heal itself.
My dog, Ramen... is the only one that keeps me calm when I experience being close to a panic attack and when I feel that pain and heat in my chest. That's what emotional support animals do.
In depression, your capacity to feel just flattens and disappears and what you feel is pain and a kind of pain that you can't describe to anybody. So it's an isolating pain, a completely isolating pain.
I want to be inside you so badly, Grace,” he whispered. “I want to feel your legs wrapped around me, feel your breasts against my chest, hear you moaning as I make slow, sweet love to you. I want your smell on my body, your breath on my skin.