To be told that presence is the path to healing feels almost cruel when the present moment is a landscape of pain. For me, fibromyalgia turns my body into a storm—prickles on my skin, radiating aches, joints that feel bruised and rusted. The chaos within mirrors the chaos around me, making it hard to find a place to rest, to breathe, to just be.
Where is the oil for these rusted joints? Where is the salve for this endless ache? My here and now feels like it is in shambles, scattered across the jagged edges of pain that make each moment feel uninhabitable.
They say to focus on breathing, to let the inhale and exhale anchor me to the now. But how can I be present when the present hurts so much? Breathing feels impossible when pain screams louder than the soft whispers of peace that mindfulness promises.
And yet, in the rare moments when I can breathe—when I can focus not on escaping the pain but on softening around it—I find something surprising. Not relief, not joy, but a kind of acceptance. Not of the pain itself, but of my resilience. In those moments, I don’t judge myself for struggling. I don’t blame my body for what it can’t do. Instead, I honor it for continuing, for surviving this storm one breath at a time.
The practice of presence isn’t easy for someone like me. It’s messy and incomplete, interrupted by the sharp reality of pain. But maybe it doesn’t have to be perfect. Maybe presence is simply returning to the breath, even after the hundredth distraction. Maybe it’s allowing myself to feel the pain without letting it define me. Maybe it’s learning to inhabit this broken, aching now with the gentleness I so desperately need.
If the present is where healing begins, then let it start small. One breath, one moment of grace, one acknowledgment that I am still here—despite it all.
~Candice Carver
