MVC The Next Chapter

… about pain.

I have written about this many times, but you might be new to me, so let me tell you a little bit about how I see the healing of pain.

You will hear me talk about ‘it’ a lot:

Pain.

I talk about the other ‘it’ a lot too:

Suffering.

Struggle.

Poverty.

Trauma.

Abuse.

Abandonment.

Alone.

Oh, yes, that’s the one most struggle with:

‘You can’t be that alone’.

So I was watching a movie today, a husband and wife were stood at the door and the wife was receiving bad news from a police officer.

She did the ‘lean in’ as her husband held her and she continued to receive the bad news.

His arm was around her, she leaned to the side: knowing he would hold her up.

I said out loud ‘aw, the lean in, yes, that would be nice’.

Have I had that lean in in my life?

Yes.

Probably around ten, fifteen, twenty times.

If that sounds odd. The way I phrased it, counted it, it’s a coping strategy. So when my irrational self-talker says ‘no-one has ever been there for you’ my practical adult says: ‘sure, it feels that way, and that sucks, but, well: there were a few times…’

I remember when sitting on the floor of my housing association flat in Old Trafford, reading a text from my once estranged, reconnected again estranged father, it read:

‘I can’t do this, we’re too different’ after a six-month re-connection following a thirty-seven year abandonment (he left, I found him again on Genes reunited, he left again):

‘The fucking bastard! What a fucking selfish man! Don’t you dare think this is your fault!’’

My friend screamed with compassion, knowing that the middle aged me knew it wasn’t my fault, but also knowing that the five-year-old me would be reading that text.

The five-year-old me who had been abandoned,

Again.

So…. Why am I sharing this with you?

I am not.

Not really.

In the main, as I write, write, write:

I am telling this part of my story to me.

Again.

Because I am going through a process that requires my story.

I am, though, more so, sitting still for a moment that happens to be full of memories of where the ‘lean in’ was absent for what feels like many, many decades (or was it lifetimes?).

I happen to be sitting in a moment that has little to no ‘lean in’ for me, right now.

I happen to know that I have elongated my suffering in this life by trying to fix:

not heal.

I am sitting in a moment that happens to be teaching me radical self-care.

I appear to be sitting stationary in pain that, weirdly:

Ain’t so bad.

So, the real reason I am sharing this, again, with you is:

To remind you that ‘going back’ isn’t necessarily going back to exactly the same spot.

You might be going back to a specific spot you missed the first time.

The second time.

The third time.

And that’s okay.

I am reminding you that the spot you are sitting in is the place where the healing resides. The true healing.

That true healing that can only come about from absolute and complete non-judging stillness.

Acceptance.

Tears and pain.

Be in the pain dear friend.

Yes.

That pain.

If you need to tell your story again to access that pain.

That’s okay too.

I’m listening.

In Love,

IAmMattVC The Alchemist xx

© 2026 Matt Valentine-Chase

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