The culture I grew up in gave me a terrible burden: It taught me that "absence of pain" is a sign that all's well, 'normal' conditions are prevailing, I'm doing it right, and that I belong to a community, a world where "absence of pain" is the way things are supposed to be.
"Absence of pain" became my touchstone for making decisions and evaluating options.
"Absence of pain" became my touchstone for making decisions and evaluating options.
This turned a useful survival mechanism into a trap. The "whys" are easy to see: When you convince people that unrealistic expectations are normal, you can control them. You can sell them things.
Springing the "there's something wrong" trap both weakens the target and makes it easier to convince them that whatever you're selling- be it a theology, a law, a candidate, or a product- will fix the problem.
And once you drink the "absence of pain is possible/normal" kool-aid, or (even worse) the "I'm entitled to a largely pain-free existence" flavor, emotional and spiritual growth stops. You never mature much beyond that point.
Convinced that "absence of pain" is an indicator that we're functioning correctly, some of us develop fantastic pain-avoidance skills. Some of us internalize that we're 'abnormal,' and learn to expect, seek, even wallow in, pain, letting it become an inverted version of normal for us.
I tried both versions of dealing with the supposed anomaly of pain. It kept me stunted or immature. These coping strategies propagate damage to ourselves and our connections with other human beings. They deny the purpose of pain, and negate its gift.
Pain isn't a 'nice' gift. Not a fun one. Physical pain is deeply challenging enough, but at least we comprehend its source, and to some extent its purpose. And we are beginning to understand something of the practical steps for dealing with it. (Although even there, our grotesque detour into the promiscuous development and use of ever-more-powerful opioid painkillers reveals how far we have yet to go.)
The other kind of pain is even more challenging. Pain that comes with loss, profound loneliness, deep regret, fear or shame, can hit us with terrible effect. The impact becomes even more devastating with the sense of 'wrongness' imbued by the cultural belief that "absence of pain" is the normal, right state of affairs. To the pain is added the need to define "why me? why now? why this?" and determine who (if anyone) is to blame.
And the need for revenge on a perceived agent of the initial pain perpetuates the damage, deepens and extends the pain's hold.
Nevertheless, pain is a gift. Coming to terms with the reality that pain cycles into all human life on a regular basis can help unwrap this gift.
Paradoxically, the nature of the gift became clear to me when I realized that no matter how carefully I analyzed the "why and how" of each pain in my life, and applied what I learned to avoid it next time, there would always be more pain, new pain, from predictable or unpredictable sources.
People I love die. There is no "solution" I can apply to this except to stop loving people.
The preventive measure is worse than what it is trying to prevent, although in the first agonies of loss, I don't always believe that.
No matter how diligently I analyze every mistake I make and refrain from repeating it, I will make other mistakes, and they will bring pain.
No matter how carefully I look after my body, there will be a virus or an injury or just the chance combination of my genetic makeup and an unsuspected stimulus to activate a painful condition. Making it my responsibility to keep pain from ever happening, and my fault if it does happen, only adds to the periodic and unavoidable pain of living in a human body.
This realization freed me to stop thinking obsessively (and exclusively) about how to prevent or avoid particular pains.
Instead, I can focus on the experience of pain itself. And in doing that, the many facets of its gift become clear:
Pain makes us survivors. The experience of survival gives us confidence, if we let it.
The awareness of others' suffering given through my own survival grants me the blessing of humility: Not thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less.
We are not so different from one another, after all. We suffer, and we survive.
When I stop focusing on the causes of specific pain (to prevent its recurrence, or punish the guilty cause of the pain- often myself) I begin to see the tracks of pain, the underlying weaknesses and exposed joints. These are often beliefs and assumptions that allow magnification of the pain, intensifying and perpetuating it.
We don't love pain, and we're not supposed to. Seeking it, setting ourselves up for it, and wallowing in it is as dysfunctional a response to it as attempting to prevent and avoid it entirely.
But when I accept pain on its own terms, explore it, try to understand it, and experiment with what it might take to heal it, I experience its gifts.
Springing the "there's something wrong" trap both weakens the target and makes it easier to convince them that whatever you're selling- be it a theology, a law, a candidate, or a product- will fix the problem.
And once you drink the "absence of pain is possible/normal" kool-aid, or (even worse) the "I'm entitled to a largely pain-free existence" flavor, emotional and spiritual growth stops. You never mature much beyond that point.
Convinced that "absence of pain" is an indicator that we're functioning correctly, some of us develop fantastic pain-avoidance skills. Some of us internalize that we're 'abnormal,' and learn to expect, seek, even wallow in, pain, letting it become an inverted version of normal for us.
I tried both versions of dealing with the supposed anomaly of pain. It kept me stunted or immature. These coping strategies propagate damage to ourselves and our connections with other human beings. They deny the purpose of pain, and negate its gift.
Pain isn't a 'nice' gift. Not a fun one. Physical pain is deeply challenging enough, but at least we comprehend its source, and to some extent its purpose. And we are beginning to understand something of the practical steps for dealing with it. (Although even there, our grotesque detour into the promiscuous development and use of ever-more-powerful opioid painkillers reveals how far we have yet to go.)
The other kind of pain is even more challenging. Pain that comes with loss, profound loneliness, deep regret, fear or shame, can hit us with terrible effect. The impact becomes even more devastating with the sense of 'wrongness' imbued by the cultural belief that "absence of pain" is the normal, right state of affairs. To the pain is added the need to define "why me? why now? why this?" and determine who (if anyone) is to blame.
And the need for revenge on a perceived agent of the initial pain perpetuates the damage, deepens and extends the pain's hold.
Nevertheless, pain is a gift. Coming to terms with the reality that pain cycles into all human life on a regular basis can help unwrap this gift.
Paradoxically, the nature of the gift became clear to me when I realized that no matter how carefully I analyzed the "why and how" of each pain in my life, and applied what I learned to avoid it next time, there would always be more pain, new pain, from predictable or unpredictable sources.
People I love die. There is no "solution" I can apply to this except to stop loving people.
The preventive measure is worse than what it is trying to prevent, although in the first agonies of loss, I don't always believe that.
No matter how diligently I analyze every mistake I make and refrain from repeating it, I will make other mistakes, and they will bring pain.
No matter how carefully I look after my body, there will be a virus or an injury or just the chance combination of my genetic makeup and an unsuspected stimulus to activate a painful condition. Making it my responsibility to keep pain from ever happening, and my fault if it does happen, only adds to the periodic and unavoidable pain of living in a human body.
This realization freed me to stop thinking obsessively (and exclusively) about how to prevent or avoid particular pains.
Instead, I can focus on the experience of pain itself. And in doing that, the many facets of its gift become clear:
Pain makes us survivors. The experience of survival gives us confidence, if we let it.
The awareness of others' suffering given through my own survival grants me the blessing of humility: Not thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less.
We are not so different from one another, after all. We suffer, and we survive.
When I stop focusing on the causes of specific pain (to prevent its recurrence, or punish the guilty cause of the pain- often myself) I begin to see the tracks of pain, the underlying weaknesses and exposed joints. These are often beliefs and assumptions that allow magnification of the pain, intensifying and perpetuating it.
We don't love pain, and we're not supposed to. Seeking it, setting ourselves up for it, and wallowing in it is as dysfunctional a response to it as attempting to prevent and avoid it entirely.
But when I accept pain on its own terms, explore it, try to understand it, and experiment with what it might take to heal it, I experience its gifts.