Pain As A Teacher And Not An Enemy
“I’m a shadow specter of what I was, the footprint of distance that marked my avoidance and still don’t understand the purpose of my life. Who brought us here?
The years go by and change as the wind blows, they change with my events, and when I need it most, I pray that what I’m told is true. I cling to the poster, the guide, the pillars supporting my weight, without realizing it, until I sink them into the cold, hard ground.
Morning becomes gigantic and night eternal. I ‘d like to have the energy of a comet, even though I’d resigned myself to its trail. Why does fate make us suffer? And why do others suffer with my fate? Maybe I should stay alone, but my selfishness prevents me, I need to wrap myself in someone else’s arms, warm myself with the beat of a heart and feel the wind in the breath of a friend of soul.
The pain, I learned that I should avoid it, run away from it, deny it . However, she returns with more force, never abandons me and still grabs me.
Bitter pain, I don’t want it, leave me and go.
Bitter pain, why do you hold me so tightly?
They taught me not to think about it, they taught me to always look for a remedy, they taught me to take medication, ointments and use a thousand dressings. I was told to ignore her, so that I could focus my attention on other things that make me flee from her presence, like the devil flees from the cross.”
Why do we run from pain?
At some moments in our lives, perhaps many, this inner dialogue of a person who is suffering may sound familiar. Be it physical or psychic pain, our culture teaches us to run away from it, to seek a remedy at the expense of whatever is necessary.
Sometimes we abuse drugs and medications that are remedies, not patches that cover what scares us….
Modern society cannot bear pain; it is perceived as unnatural, and then the big problem begins. We denaturalize it and want to turn it into an enemy, from whom we have to flee, and not understand it as something unpleasant, but that it is natural.
Some physical problems have a solution, others don’t; in many cases medications are needed, but people can become addicted, and in some cases the effects of medication do more harm than it hurts.
the psychic pain
But what about psychological problems? The pain of the soul? What to do with them? In the face of emotional discomfort there is no pill, therapy or medicine to relieve it. What we do? We run away and try to think about it less, or we avoid it even more, until the thoughts reappear with more force.
To deal with the pain, we can opt for escape, for what modern therapies call “Experiential avoidance”, but this can make our pain something chronic, adding to it other aspects such as sadness, anguish, bitterness and despair.
If that doesn’t help, what can we do to deal with the pain? Seeing it as something natural, something we don’t need to run away from, something that is simply part of life.
It’s another way of looking at pain, looking into the eyes, without making value judgments, observing it, understanding how it is, without thinking, without words, without emotions, just looking and learning from it; without avoiding, without running away, dismantling it little by little, without controlling it.
the pain is just the pain
Basically, we need to learn that pain is just pain, and its relief depends simply on how we decide to face it: running away and turning it into something chronic and harmful, or understanding that this is an inevitable part of life.
Pain appears like tides, comes and goes. We need to hold on to living with it, not from submission, not from helplessness, but from acceptance, actively fighting for our lives.
To overcome it you must not run away from yourself or her, but learn to deal with both. And, although in many cases it is difficult, in the face of pain we can also learn to live, to enjoy the present moment and other good things that life gives us.
Image courtesy of Leon Chong
