Engaging With Pain
Pain is inevitable, whether it’s physical sensation, mental anguish, or on a deeper psychic level and for most of us the goal is to avoid it at all cost. Although it is a part of the human condition we tend to be shocked and offended when it arrives. In situations where there is seemingly no way out, we can certainly add a layer of introspection and curiosity to our often flailing and fearful response which can not only lessen pain but help us to understand ourselves better.
My chronic pain started about a decade ago in the form of neck pain and migraines. Each year I pushed through it with pain medication, chiropractic work, and other bandaids so I could continue working. After seeing a spine surgeon to pinpoint exactly what was going on, I found out that my cervical spine is ridden with arthritis, bone spurs, and bulging discs likely from my many years doing hair and possibly just genetics. I kept working, making adjustments to my posture and using physical therapy, even resorting to injections between the tiny discs of my neck, but eventually it caught up with me. Pain has taken away a career that I loved and freedom to do some of the things I enjoy. And although it pales in comparison to others, it has given me a lot to chew on lately as it reared its head to such a level that I could not move, eat, or dress myself. I could not watch TV or read, and so I sat stock still, often with tears streaming down my face, just observing my own mind.
What I found is that I created so much extra suffering for myself. I would start to feel sorry for myself and my pain increased. I would catastrophize about my future and my pain would increase. I would blame myself for everything from not going to college to continuing to do work that was harming me, to self medicating in ways that were unhealthy. After all, what use was I to my family and society if I wasn’t doing all the things. I started to see these thoughts for what they are: useless. There doesn’t have to be a lesson in pain. I was trying to make sense of it, blame something, rather than accept that pain, like aging, is a part of life and one way or another it would pass. Pain is physical discomfort while suffering is the story around pain.
Unlike the more common meditation practice of “breathing in the good stuff and breathing out the bad stuff” in Tonglen meditation you breathe in pain and suffering, allowing it to connect you to others who are suffering. Some might reflect on the suffering of Jesus on the cross and I call it suffering here because Jesus is said to have called out “God, why have you forsaken me.” We might think of a friend whose suffering we relate to and have more compassion for in that moment. In this way rather than feeling more isolated, it brings a sense of oneness with others around the world who are also suffering. This is all well and good, and I practiced it at times, but when suffering is all encompassing I often had to simply breathe.
One of the benefits I had in the months leading up to the birth of my second child was a process of exploring my relationship with pain. I read a book that, rather than sugar coating or glorifying the experience of natural childbirth without medication, stated that this was not going to be a walk in the park. It would be like running a marathon (an apt metaphor as I find running to be tortuous) The author encouraged a real honest look at how I thought about pain. This had never crossed my mind before. I took for granted that my belief was that it was inherently bad and to be avoided at all cost. But in examining this (a process that unfolded over weeks and months) I began to release some of my fear and storyline about it. I wasn’t trying to be a hero or have a superior birthing. I simply chose to have an experience that included pain. It sounds silly but it was actually quite eye opening. And if circumstances changed and I needed to do it a different way I was okay with that too because I had let go of the story.
Living on this earth in these bodies is quite a wild ride. It is astounding the intensity of sensations that we are capable of feeling. Whether our lives last for one hour or a hundred years, life is full of both joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain until our journeys are complete.