The Holy Intelligence of Pain

While still in the festive spirit, wishing you all a blessed year.

This chapter, like any of my chapters, is not meant to be read lightly. It is meant to be read only if you are ready to receive.

(Photo Credit: Eun Soo Ohm)

The ‘I’ knows and realizes that all events are its own design.

I design all that I experience in life. I connect with whom I have called in, I endure the consequences of my choices, both conscious and subconscious. The joy, the pain, the comfort and the discomfort, birth and death, the touchable and the untouchable, the seen and the unseen, the felt and the unfelt, the comprehensive and that which lives beyond comprehension. 

I called in everything I have ‘known’ to want within the limits of what I could comprehend in this lifetime.

‘Your wish is my command’ - said the universe

Ask and you shall receive indeed, and now… I pause.

I contemplate in silence and stillness.

Creator of all that is, I float in openness and surrender equally to pain and joy.

When the Year Truly Begins

I do not believe the New Year begins on January 1st. I believe it begins the moment my body stops bracing. The moment I feel something true, even if it’s inconvenient, even if it’s messy, or painful, and I choose to listen instead of override.

The New Gregorian Year 2026 opened under the energy of the Wolf Moon on January 3. In its waning phase of the lunar cycle, we were not meant to put out intentions on manifesting more, but to release what has been running us. 

The Wolf Moon was not here to motivate. It was here to bring us home.

January’s Full Moon, traditionally called the Wolf Moon, carries the symbolism of winter truth: instinct, survival, belonging, and the courage to walk with oneself in the dark without abandonment.

Astrologically, this Full Moon arrived in Cancer (the sign of home, emotional body, motherline, safety and the inner child). 

And Cancer moons reveals one thing with precision:

Where I’ve been loyal to everyone’s needs except my own.

Pain as intelligence

Pain is not a flaw in my healing. Pain is information. I do not treat pain as an enemy.

I treat it as a language.

Sometimes pain is physical. Sometimes emotional. Sometimes ancestral. Sometimes it is the pain of being too small for too long, the pain of suppression, self-betrayal, silence, and the slow leakage of life force.

Across sacred lineages, pain is rarely framed as “random.”
It is framed as something that can be met, held, and transformed.

“Don’t shoot yourself with the second arrow.” - Buddha

There is the pain of sensation. And then there is the suffering added through fear, story, identity, and resistance.
This month, I invite you to ask: What is the pain and what is the fear about the pain? 

“Your pain is seen. Your cry is heard.” - The Torah

In Exodus, suffering is named as real, witnessed, and worthy of liberation.
This month, I invite you to ask: Where do I need rescue and what liberation do I keep postponing?

“Lament is not weakness, it’s truth spoken to heaven.” - The Bible

The Psalms don’t pretend. They pour. They ache. They call out.
This month, I invite you to ask: What truth have I been too “spiritual” to admit? 

“With hardship comes ease and you are not burdened beyond capacity.” - The Quran pairs difficulty with relief, and endurance is framed as strength, not denial.
This month, I invite you to ask: What would patience look like if it was gentle, not punishing?

A New Kind Of Devotion 

This month I invite safety works. Regulation works. Devotion works. Instead of resolution lists.

The collective nervous system is exhausted, I do not need a bigger plan.
I need a softer relationship with my body. 

When my body feels unsafe, it will sabotage even my brightest intentions, not because I’m broken, but because it is protecting.

So for this New Year  and this month, I’m offer a reframe:

Instead of “What do I want this year?”
Ask: “What must be released so I can hold what I want?”

A Somatic Closing 

I place one hand on my womb space (lower belly), one hand my chest

I breathe slowly, letting my belly soften.

I name the pain without my narrative

“This is here. I am here. I’m listening.”

I ask gently:

. What do I actually feel?

. Where does it live in the body?

. What meaning have I attached to it?

. What am I afraid it confirms about me?

I choose one release sentence:

. “I release the timeline that requires me to suffer to be worthy.”

. “I release the habit of abandoning myself to keep the peace.”

. “I release the belief that my sensitivity is a problem.”

. “I release the shame that never belonged to me.”

I close with one nervous-system act of devotion:

a swim, or a salt or magnesium bath, silence, a slow walk, or early sleep.

I choose safety now. I return to the body.

If this reading or practice, stirred emotion, libido, tears, rage, or tenderness, that is not regression.

That’s aliveness returning.

Let it.

“This year, I don’t force. I soften. I listen. I rise.”

Note: These journal shares are written intentionally using high-frequency language, carrying vibrational and healing qualities.
Allow the words to be felt as much as they are read.

With love and light

I belong to you,

Danielle Daou

If you want to go deeper:

I’m building something behind the scenes, a space that holds women in ritual, truth, nervous-system healing, sensual reclamation, and embodied power. I am co-hosting a live vulvA webinar on January 21st to help vulva owners release shame, understand core desire, and come back into the body, gently and powerfully.

If you feel called, you can register here: https://www.vulvahh.com/Live-webinar

If you want to receive updates on my upcoming community space + new offerings, subscribe to The High Healer newsletter and I’ll keep you close to what’s coming.