Triad of Pain

One of the most illustrative aspects of pain is when the individual in pain attempts to convey their comprehension of pain in direct relation to another being’s life experience. This verbal game of “One Upping” another through the strategy of whom is “hurting more” is a distressing commentary on society’s vanity. Obtaining an elementary education about pain is an easy task to fulfill with today’s age of information.

When a non-suffering person attempts to “categorize” pain they have withdrawn themselves from the opportunity of empathy. Yet when we have a person who is afflicted with pain and they then attempt to evaluate them to a non- afflicted person’s experience of pain they have reduced themselves into a petty schoolyard spat. The extraordinary truth of pain is that no ones particular pain is greater then another’s. When we are in a healthy mindset we understand that ideally; pain is not a yardstick in which we measure each other or ourselves against another.

I have found a metaphor in which I find finally addresses society’s difficult relationship with pain:

There are three people standing before you.

Now as we watch we notice a fourth person approached the three people. This new 4th person moves towards the first person and suddenly takes out a hidden baseball bat slowly. Methodically and with deliberate intention they begin raising the bat flexing their arms, rotating their waist and begin to gather momentum as the fancified piece of wood slams across the 1st person’s chest. The being falls to the floor in obvious physical distress and pain.

The second person stands in the same place as if in a military drill. This now known agitator slowly moves to him/her and let’s loose again yet this time they hurl a large amount of spit. He spatters his wet secretions into the second person’s face.

Last in this line we come to a slightly heavier man remaining left standing alone. This fellow is the final of the original three we first came upon. The attacker looms over this overweight person and detonates a verbal explosion of insults. ‘You fat fucking pig…why cant you just put the fork down? …You’re pathetic; I bet you can’t find your dick under all those rolls of fat!

I ask you now to answer as truthfully as you can…

Who hurts worse?

Pain is pain.

All pain weighs the same for those who experience pain. No matter if the generator of the negative sensation originates in the physical body or the disturbance grows in the corners of one’s sense of self. Pain comes at us from every direction possible.

Pain is an INDICATOR that something is amiss. Pain is one of the great communicators in life.

There is no great mystery of what pain is. We all are born with the internal knowledge and experience of pain.

I find it easier to group the generators of pain into primary groups:

There is physical generation; cancer pain, dental work, broken limb, etc. This type of pain all derives from a tangible physical sensation and often we find it categorized into a particular medical condition, disease and or physical trauma. Yet they all are a tangible physical somatic experience.

Emotional/ Psychological- “sticks and stones will break my bones, yet names can never hurt me.” Wrong, words can hurt- just ask a person who is gay or lesbian in our society, or a woman who is morbidly obese. Try asking a parent of a child who has a slower affect (being perceived as slow or retarded) not knowing how to blend in socially and only knowing what it is like to live life being an “outsider.”

Ask an adult about the verbal abuse they suffered from their very own parent/guardians. Ask yourself how it would feel to be a child of 7 and be yelled at hearing how “you will never amount to anything, you are a grade A fuck up.” Try on the feeling of hearing your mother scream in rage at you that ” you bastard…you are your father”s son…. and your Father was a worthless drunk who never supported his family and ran out on me when I was pregnant with your little sister…you are just like him…. You are a worthless piece of shit!”.

Better yet ask that young woman in a residential treatment center for eating disorders how it felt to hear her parents in unison tell this young woman (12-14 years of age) she was a slut for wearing make up to school and that she needed to put the make up and fork down and loose that belly that is making her an embarrassment to the family.

Spiritual Pain- Wanting to believe in a G-d, and not being able to take that leap of faith. Living in a family that has generational differences in the faith that is practiced.

Choosing as an adult to follow a different spiritual path. Choosing moral values that contradict a particular churches principles. Example: A young man raised in a Baptist church realized he is indeed gay. How can he reconcile this within without experiencing some kind of pain?

Feeling as if you are a speck in this universe and there is no benevolent being that cares for you. Believing in the foundation of a church and having them defraud you of monies and or rejecting you when you have a crisis. (Jerry Falwell comes to mind).

There is literally a plethora of illustrations for the three categories I have listed above. I am guessing you can apply the specifics that pertain to you and add, expand, enhance the “list.” I shared the examples above to navigate tough terrain and quickly find a way where I could cut through the distractions, limit the chase, and simplify as easily as I could what I believe is the triad of pain generators that we experience in our human condition.

Now we know empirically that there is PAIN, and what generates PAIN can we agree to put aside the societal pattern of “ranking” pain? Can we begin anew and accept that pain is an indicator? That pain is a messenger? Can we begin to give up the useless need to discuss and dispute, “Whose pain is more severe?” Can we get over the immediacy of “victim hood”? Can we find a direct route to rise to our collective potential and exercise our abilities to experience, share and grant empathy to others? I believe taking these actions will shift of our individual attention and subsequently allow us to propel our society as a whole into addressing the source of our pains.

If we decide to venture down the twisted path of categorizing who has what pain and who is hurting more we fall into the trap of labeling. When we begin to label we begin to dismantle the individual as well as our society into adjectives. When we take those actions it becomes easier to commit the various transgressions against a word. Yet when we put a face, an experience and ourselves into the category we find the inherent need to protect ourselves and those we care for change our intentions. Hopefully we can even encounter our own innate ability to experience empathy and then give empathy instead of a judgment.

Sadly we can even drown in the sea of pain. If we spend all our emotional energy avoiding the sensation we are so scared of we are essentially giving all our internal power over to pain. Avoidance does not stop the somatic content.

We can spend HOURS, thousands of dollars in therapy discussing the subtleties of our pain. I feel it is a failing strategy. “ Dancing around” the un-addressed real issue is akin to treading water in the open sea. It would be to your benefit to get in the life raft and stop treading water outside of your survival craft- get real and hunt down the generator of your discomfort. If we do not begin to actively save ourselves we can become distracted by this emotional habit.

If we continue the pattern of avoidance we then open the pathway to simultaneously and deliberately allowing ourselves to be in a place of distraction which undermines our ability and emotional energy to get to the heart of the matter and ultimately find what is amiss inside our being that is primarily responsible for generating our pain in the first place.

Unfortunately the majority of people when they are first diagnosed with a chronic condition and or chronic pain unconsciously choose to behave and partake in this very dance of denial. These individuals exert tremendous energies in their new identity of one who suffers, of one who has pain, of one who is ill and eventually they find themselves to get heavily invested in the identity of one in pain. This tactic permits them to remove any personal accountability. Soon the individual views himself or herself as if they are synonymous with pain. Often they relinquish how they defined themselves prior to the pain and have no other way to relate to their sense of self nor do they have the words to describe who they are outside of the confines of being a patient.

A byproduct of the above experience is that these patients are souls. They are or mothers, our father, our sisters and brothers, they are our children, our hero’s, our teachers and our friends. They are loved by some one yet often they have lost the ability to love themselves as they see themselves as the same thing that is generating their pain and how can you love what is hurting you? In all that time they are stuck. They have lost the gift of self-love while failing to understand they are STILL a unique and precious soul. Even if one is in pain we can remind them to cultivate themselves. Sadly many take up wasting away their very lives as if it was their new career. They burn the calories of their flesh away through the furnace of a terminal emotional backslide.

I urge us all to begin by breaking our own habits of comparing our own pain to another’s. I suggest we funnel that precious life energy into the question “ What can I do this moment to better myself?” For at each stage or our recovery this question can bring out our very best, propelling us forward into higher emotional ground and an actively healthier self-identity. Rise above the petty digressions of the every day world. Choose your path wisely. Aggressively participate in your life. Co-Create your future. Give up being a follower and take up the lead in your life. Discontinue the self-medicating.

You know what it takes to be truthful with yourself and how you will best summon your unconditional strength. Begin to be bold. Challenge yourself. Get honest.

Once you begin to rise to this cherished awakening of embracing yourself you will find gifts that include the ability to heal your own demons, the strength to cast out your pain as your only identity and surprisingly you will be able to be the one who can restore you into the one piece you were once…before all the hurt of being human shattered you into a thousand little pieces. You will be able to let go of the person you thought you were and forgive that scared and insecure sense of self you have tolerated internally all these years. You can begin to know yourself as your WHOLE self.

An overabundance of other delights are yours for the enjoying once you choose to be the courageous soul you are as you embark on the ultimate voyage of your existence… the voyage to the center of a whole, living, healing and self loving you without the need to qualify your experience, your life or pain to another’s.