It is no secret that at least from what I write, I experience a fair amount of pain. It is unlikely to be the worst pain anyone has experienced, nor is it the most constant pain, as there are some times of respite, all be them short. Still, pain is always a personal experience that is hard to compare with others, even when the conditions appear near identical. This is why two people can eat a spicy meal and have two very different views of the experience.
All of our experience is incomparable to others.
But we do compare.
My relationship with pain is a love-hate situation, where there are times that I love the feeling and times that it feels like it is crushing me. Yet, the difference between the two seems to work along the lines of the meaning of the pain, or the purpose of the experience. For instance, going to the gym and pushing a heavy weight to the limit of my body can be painful, but I experience it as a good feeling. Whereas the pain I have had for example from pancreatitis when I was young, was a terrible experience. One is a position of growth, one of suffering.
It seems today that a lot of what we experience as pain is seen as suffering, as if pain shouldn't be part of our daily experience. Yet, if you look at the oldest cultures in the world and how they handle pain, they divorce pain from suffering, seeing one of the body, the other of the mind. We seem to forget this though, because the same wiring is responsible for both, meaning that in order to tease the two apart, we would first have to engage our mind to differentiate which is "just pain" and which is "suffering".
Is it doing us harm?
I often use the visualisation when considering fear, of standing on the edge of a cliff with the risk of falling off, and standing on the edge of a stage with thousands of expectant people waiting for a speech. The fear network and experience could be equally engaged for both, but only one of them has a physical risk involved, while the other has a psychological risk only. The reaction of the body can be the same however, with beating heart and sweaty palms, racing mind, and high discomfort.
A child fears an imaginary monster under the bed.
And the body responds.
Pain is similar in many ways, because our body doesn't automatically differentiate between good pain, and bad pain - growth and suffering. Instead, it defaults to all pain is bad pain because that is what the brain has learned is going to give the best chance of survival. But in a world where we don't usually face existential acute threats daily like we did in the past, we have become unaccustomed to the levels of pain tolerance we likely once had, and instead err on the side of caution, when there is no reason to be cautious.
On top of this, we have also increasingly conditioned our mind to value pleasure, overusing our reward centres to the point that we expect we should always feel good, and if we don't, then something is wrong with us. This is not the case - life is full of pain. Always was, always will be, and the irony is that the more we try to avoid the pain, the more painful life becomes. A person who takes painkillers to lessen their pain, will lower their tolerance to pain over time and they will become more sensitive and take the pill a little earlier. This is the same for the people who avoid social discomfort too, or expect to only hear the things that they want to hear, in the way they want to hear them.
As said, my relationship with pain is contradictory, because I clearly experience both good and bad pain, sometimes simultaneously. I can push myself in a painful growth situation, whilst concurrently experiencing suffering pain from a different condition. The thing that helps me through, is differentiating the experiences as two separate events, choosing to put my resources into growth over suffering. The pain from the suffering doesn't stop, but it is also not nearly as unsufferable. Instead, I am able to increase the energy expenditure on the growth side, because I can am able to remove the cost on the suffering side.
Resources where they are best needed.
Just think how much would be possible if we could all allocate our personal mental, physical and emotional resources to where they are most valuable. Instead of spending time worrying about or experiencing the fear of embarrassment, we could just act and do, learning from the experience, trying again, improving. Instead of holding ourselves back because the emotional pain we feel from disappointment, we could recalibrate and send our resources into building better, engaging again, discovering new.
Pain is a guide.
A guide may be a suggestion, but it doesn't mean it is the correct or only way forward. If the guide is confused by the situation, unable to appropriately evaluate and formulate the experience, it is going to recommend actions that might be counter to where we want to go, and what we want to achieve. I believe that a lot of our human sensors are out of calibration today, because we have fed ourselves and conditioned ourselves on a host of alternatives, choices and substitutes, that have weakened our ability to accurately decision make. Not only this, these alternatives, like fast food, are easier to obtain, feel better in the moment, and are far more convenient to use.
But they all carry a future cost.
The future cost of always trying to feel good by constantly managing for the level of pain rather than the type of pain, means to reduce the threshold to feeling bad. This sets up a cyclical relationship of pain relief that requires more relief from lower rates of pain, in the same way a drug addict needs more of a drug to get an equivalent high, but the high doesn't last as long.
Of course, I am no expert in dealing with pain or what it even is, I am just a student of it through my own experiences and observations, as well as the tips and tricks I have picked up or developed along the way. What I have come to accept though is that I am never going to be pain free, until my life ends, so that means in order to have a higher quality of experience and increased wellbeing, acting with pain is the only way forward. Doing what I need to do, rather than what I am told to do by what are often, misfiring signals in my brain.
What I think we should all realise though, is that pain is not incompatible with joy. We are still able to experience joy, even when we are hurting the most, whether that be physical or psychological pain. Often though, joy is coupled with the shared experience of doing something meaningful with people we care for. So to live a better life, we needn't keep searching for pain relief, but increase the meaningful experiences we have with others, doing something that aids our growth.
Even if painful.
Taraz
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Several points in your reflection caught my attention, such as the idea that pain is neither good nor bad, but I know from experience that I can classify it on that scale. ‘Good’ or ‘positive’ pain is pain that serves a useful purpose, such as muscle pain after exercise (we have all experienced this), which indicates progress, or pain that alerts us to an injury (we have also experienced this). ‘Bad’ or negative pain is pain that has no clear function, is chronic and intense, and is perceived as suffering that interferes with daily routine, such as unresolved emotional pain (like the premature death of a child...).
In this context, suffering without purpose is pain that has no useful function and is perceived as suffering, unless we are masochists. Now, chronic and severe pain prevents us from performing daily activities and we tend to alleviate it with medication. And when it comes to emotional pain, that's where things get grey, if we measure it by modern standards. Negative experiences and traumas can leave emotional wounds that generate “psychological” pain, which can manifest itself as fear, insecurity and resentment. Unlike positive emotions, intense or prolonged negative emotions can be painful and difficult to escape, because we tend to somatise them.
It took me almost three years to recover from the loss of my daughter, and I still mourn her. My son Matthew has been the best therapy I've ever had. The only chronic pain I've ever had was when I had a kidney stone in my right kidney; it's a pain that can't be relieved by sitting, standing, or lying down.
Twenty years ago, my brother Jhonny had surgery on both knees and was prescribed TRAMAL, a powerful and highly addictive painkiller. He took only one tablet and preferred to deal with the pain.
Life, my friend @tarazkp, is perceived as a complex world of pain because pain and suffering are inherent aspects of human existence, whether physical or emotional. However, the way we experience and process pain, and whether it becomes lasting suffering, depends largely on psychological and socio-cultural factors and on our personal ability to process difficult experiences in the search for meaning in our own lives.
Something is lost in your translation, because I explicitly separated good and bad pain and defined them.
The loss of a child is probably the worst kind of emotional trauma (for most parents) that there could be I guess. There is no full recovery from it I assume, as it would always lay heavy. I have a couple of friends who have lost children and there is always a daily reminder for them.
They are really careful with painkillers here - hardly any strong stuff and when there is, they give the bare minimum amount of tablets.
Those are some great thoughts. I know what you mean about lifting weights. I always used to love that ache you get in your armpits later in the day or the next day after bench pressing. It's an interesting feeling. I think when you look at it in the physical side, it helps make the mental side of things make more sense. When you lift weights you are tearing them down so the body can build them back stronger. We need to recognize that applies to our minds as well.
I'm so on-the fence between challenging that & launching into a sales pitch and keeping my mouth shut. 😹
May save the full convo for a different time - unless you're actually curious on how that may be a conventionally-embraced "truth," though not actually the entire picture and a sub-optimal strategic premise for bodybuilding and wanna go there. Mighta just bumped an idea in my writing queue up that we'll get to later. Though in mean time, IF you're wondering wtf I'm talking about and are keen for a great ADHD sidetrack - I HIGHLY recommend getting & reading this book...
Interesting. I'll have to bookmark that. I don't really follow much of anything. I just know what I have been told and I know that I need to do something to give myself a little bit of activity each morning. I've been able to see the results with my Total Gym, so that is enough for me, whether I am doing it right or wrong.
If you don't feel it the next day or two, you didn't life enough! :D
It has for me. What I have noted over the years is that the observations I have made are close enough to the "truth" in the sense that it describes the basic process, even if not factually accurate. For me at least, having the story I can use on the fly is more valuable than having a lot of accurate facts that are difficult to apply.
Yeah, that is a good point. You at least get the "jist" of it.
Even suffering does something to our psych, just like purposeful pain. Suffering makes us understand that it's a part of life and we should just learn how to handle it. That's the Hallmark of being a survivor and no one can live well on earth without being a survivor. Every discomfort we experience has something to teach us only if we pay attention. It can teach us that we need to make adjustments in our lifestyles, etc. Turning suffering to something positive is something everyone should learn.
Suffering is a good learning tool, but life is more than just suffering and for some, they seem to get trapped there, constantly in a state of suffering, unable to do anything else until they are "better".
Growth is usually painful, they even have an expression: "Growing Pains"
I don't consider sore muscles a pain, it is an indicator that I did a good job exercising
I agree. The "pain" of growth is often confused with something negative. My daughter had growing pains in her legs occasionally and she hated them, but they are making her taller, which is what she wants.
Not that it will help her much, given her genetics. :D
Pain causes physical as well as mental suffering to people. Often, comparing these mental pains with others is a serious situation. Various medications can be used to control physical pain, but other measures must be taken to control mental pain. It is common in society today to keep old painful experiences in mind and suffer pain. Depression is one example of this. Therefore, some people are also susceptible to some bad addictions. The best thing is to handle bad pain experiences in a good way.
" live in the now" - yet people are carrying all their baggage of the past with them, having it tell them how to behave. How is that being present? :)
Psychological pain is more severe than physical pain, and you brought up a point that seems good, which is the ability to divide our reward centers or sources well and not consume them excessively because they will not always perform the same way, but on the contrary, their output will diminish or disappear completely.
I have the sense that a lot of our lives would be much easier, if we were better able to distinguish between the different parts of our body and how they function. Our body is all connected, but that doesn't mean it always works well together, or in our best interest.
It is important to understand that pain can result in personal growth; however, suffering usually arises from our unwillingness to accept it. Changing this mind can significantly change how we tackle life's challenges.
This is true. We have expectations that won't allow us to accept it too, and that creates more suffering in disappointment and failure.
It is true that pain can destroy a person's dreams and goals, but it can also drive you to achieve things you never could before. This is highlighted in the stories of people at war, people in plane and car disasters, etc., where the chaos and pain were so great that some gave up, others found more strength than they ever had in their lives, managing to survive the most extreme scenarios that when you hear them, you cannot explain how, how they managed to do it!
It is interesting how the same kinds of events can evoke such different reactions from people. For instance, there were apparently two types of people who came out of the Nazi concentration camps - Victims and Survivors. The survivors had better lives than the victims on average.
Pain evokes different emotions in different people. Even two identical events (pain) can evoke very different emotions in two different people. This stems from the parties' relationship with pain.
"You can't grow without pain, because no one evolves in a comfort zone." Reaching your goal without pain is impossible. Even if you do reach your goal, it's a fluke, and you'll quickly lose that goal.
We have a relationship with everything in our experience, even many of the things we have no experience with, or do not have. People with no money, still have a relationship with money. People with no love, still a relationship with love. It all affects our behaviours and thoughts. Pain is a pretty simple one to consider really.
We live a two sided life. Pain ushers us into the life of pleasure. Pleasure ushers into a life of pain. Both pain and pleasure are there to compliment our life, no matter how hard we try, we can not get rid of the other, instead we just have to embrace this wonderful and inevitable gifts of life and also use it to build something meaningful for our lives.
Pain really is a teacher if we let it be. I guess with age and maturity comes some understanding and a lot of them is through pain. The best thing I've done for myself is to know the difference between me suffering and what is actually allowing me to grow. I've accepted and endured somethings with a mentality that it'll make me stronger someday.