pain

There are many different kinds of pain that can keep us from living our lives fully, including physical pain, emotional pain, and mental pain. Each has its own sets of dynamics concerning how it's caused, its intensity, how we're able to respond to it, and how we're able to deal with it. What they all have in common is the fact that they can be debilitating sometimes, especially if for some reason we're not able to deal with them effectively.

In my life, I find that emotional pain is the hardest for me to deal with, mostly because I've never been given the tools that allow me to deal with it and then move on--if there even are such tools. My most intense emotional pain occurs when other people do things that hurt me, especially if they've been people I've trusted and have cared for deeply. When I do experience emotional pain from that type of source, I tend to withdraw into myself and try to protect myself from further hurt, a strategy that I know intellectually is ineffective, but that is so deeply ingrained in me that my intellect has little say about my reaction.

I do find that most of my emotional pain has more to do with my expectations of others, especially those whom I've known for many years, than with the actions themselves. When I've known someone for a very long time, I start to feel that I "know" the relationship, and there are certain things that I feel I can "expect" from the other person or persons. When those expectations are violated, this is a cause of emotional pain. Other causes involve loss, hurtful words or actions, or even my own actions.

It's important that we look at the procedures that doctors follow when their patients are experiencing physical pain. The very first step, of course, is to identify the source of the pain. Only when the source is truly identified can they treat the pain, for if they identify it incorrectly it can lead to the wrong type of treatment for the patient, which can make things even worse.

So it is with our emotional pain. When someone criticizes me and I feel pain, the person's criticism isn't necessarily the cause of the pain--how I react to criticism causes my emotional or mental anguish. The criticism is merely the catalyst that brings my reaction to the surface. The knife that cuts my finger isn't necessarily causing the pain--the way my nerve endings react is actually causing the pain. The doctor won't give me any drugs that are made to react to knives--he or she will give me drugs that react to the nerves in my body that are causing me pain.

If a person hurts me, then, that action is exposing something inside of me that reacts to the action and causes me pain. The pain, then, is a signal that I need to start working on that particularly sensitive area of myself to find out why it's so sensitive and how I might make it less sensitive. I may need to seek out the help of an objective person who can help me to see the causes clearly, but unless I actively attempt to deal with the pain, I can expect that the next time something similar happens, it will be just as painful, if not more so.

You will not grow if you sit in a beautiful flower garden, but you
will grow if you are sick, if you are in pain, if you experience losses,
and if you do not put your head in the sand, but take the pain and
learn to accept it, not as a curse or punishment but as a gift
to you with a very, very specific purpose.

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

When an apprentice gets hurt, or complains of being tired, the workmen
and peasants have this fine expression: “It is the trade entering his body.”
Each time that we have some pain to go through, we can say to ourselves
quite truly that it is the universe, the order and beauty of the world,
and the obedience of God that are entering our body.

Simone Weil

Painful situations, relationships that hurt us,
memories of experiences that pinch our nerve endings,
need not imprison us. However, we are seldom very
quick to let go of the pain. Instead, we become
obsessed with it, the precipitating circumstances,
and the longed-for, but often missed outcome.
We choose to wallow in the pain, rather than learn
from it. And we salt our own wounds every time we
indulge the desire to replay the circumstances that
triggered the pain.
Pain can't be avoided. It's as natural as joy.
In fact, we understand joy in contrast to experiences
of pain. Each offers breadth to our lives. And both
strengthen us. Our maturity is proportionate to our
acceptance of all experiences. In retrospect we can
be grateful for pain, for it offered us many
gifts in disguise.

unattributed

Life is full of painful events, and people who have lost their way and hurt others. Our pain is not lessened when we respond with hatred. In fact, the opposite occurs: When we hate people who hurt us, we come to resemble what we hate, or worse, and then we suffer all the more.

Our culture teaches us how to numb and distract ourselves but not how to listen to our pain and learn from our difficulties. Think what we learn about pain from television. We learn that pain is to be avoided at all costs and that there are a variety of pain relievers for every conceivable pain. I would like to see a commercial that says, "Your pain is a great teacher. Learn from it and be healed."

Bernie Siegel

People have a need to feel their pain. Very often pain is the beginning
of a great deal of awareness. As an energy center it awakens consciousness.

Arnold Mindell

The whole purpose of letting pain be pain is this: to let go
of pain. By entering into it, we see that we are strong
enough and capable enough to move through it.
We find out that it ultimately has a gift for us.

Matthew Fox

There is no pain quite like that of a broken heart. But a broken heart
is an open heart. When we allow ourselves to be broken,
a gentle transformation takes place.

Douglas Bloch

It is our own pain, and our own desire to be free of it, that alerts us
to the suffering of the world. It is our personal discovery that pain
can be acknowledged, even held lovingly, that enables us to look
at the pain around us unflinchingly and feel compassion being
born in us. We need to start with ourselves.

Sylvia Boorstein