On Pain
After the Latin word poena, which means punishment, pain is something that upends our experience and changes how we encounter time. It arrives in all our lives and all forms. And to think that others do not feel it is wrong.
But what does pain offer us, if anything?
I wanted to broach this subject in response to a comment on another platform because while I will never wish pain on anyone, including myself, I do feel it can be worked with and explored, even if temporarily. And I believe that everyone would benefit from trying. While pain is an inherently limiting experience, keeping us from certain foods or lifestyle choices—even from certain loved ones or physical activities—it also pulls the attention within like nothing else.
From the time I was fourteen, I would find myself intermittently doubled over in pain due to recurring pelvic pain and, later, accompanying migraines. Some alt-med folks say the pelvic bowl and cranium are connected, but that is something to explore another day. It wasn’t “normal” pain, nor was it bearable. It was the kind of pain that only more intense pain could distract from. So I learned to take scalding hot baths to distract my mind or try to push my body to exercise even though I could barely move. It would work for minutes, maybe only seconds, then the pain I was trying to avoid would return.
And while I didn’t know the Latin roots of the word when I was younger, I did believe my pain to be a punishment for something—for being the walking recessive gene I was born as (red hair, short, etc) or for not living up to my potential while I had the chance. The whole “Why me?” mantra (that does no one any good in any scenario) looped in my mind.
“We cannot be more sensitive to pleasure without being more sensitive to pain.” —Alan Watts
I no longer believe I am unlucky, nor that I need to figure out the why. Instead, my current practice—when I cannot prevent the pain, of course—is to listen to it. And when I am able, I try to express it.
Pain contains information. It is disharmony within the body or the mind. It is rarely avoidable and almost always isolating. But it can force us to listen like nothing else. It can show us environments that are costing us more than they pay us. It can show us where things are out of balance. It can show us when we’re not listening to our instincts (if only it were more subtle). Mostly though, it can force us to go within and realize how miraculous it is that the body can maintain equilibrium at other times. Even if the pain is chronic, it ebbs and flows, and when it’s relaxed even a little … wow. Yet, if we have not recently felt pain, we easily forget.
Recently, I had a migraine that kept me up through 2 a.m. I couldn’t concentrate on anything but the pain, and so I watched it pulse and move and swell and recede. It was like standing on the beach and losing my footing again and again. I tried to connect to its chaotic rhythm. It was doing the work of telling me something. Tension, dehydration, exhaustion ... something bigger? I listened.
Instead of thinking “Why me?” I got my message. It wasn’t a shocking message, but it was one I may have otherwise ignored. Didion writes beautifully about the perspective her migraine offered her.
“For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria. I open the windows and feel the air, eat gratefully, sleep well. I notice the particular nature of a flower in a glass on the stair landing.”
—Joan Didion, from “In Bed,” The White Album
I like to think of pain now as a way to remind me how chaotic the pattern of life is in general and where my compassion has been lacking for others who suffer or where convenience is stalling my growth. Most often though, it shows me where I lack compassion for myself. It slows me down and tells me what I need to hear, not what’s convenient.
Pain is not a gentle teacher, but its seeming chaos is not without a call to rhythm.
If this resonates, here’s a short practice for supporters (for whenever you need a reminder).
If you enjoy this blog, please let me know by subscribing, responding below, or sharing what you create with attribution. In gratitude, Jen
Thank you Jen, for another insightful read. You're right. Some pain is unavoidable. But it can be the motivator that rockets me into the right frame of mind.
In an anthology that includes Didion's essay, there's Ed (Ned) Hoaglund's 'The Threshold and the Jolt of Pain.' Here's a snippet: "Most severe on the physiologists' scale of pain is that of childbirth."
Like Hoaglund, my eyes had been opened to that particular experience. I had been brought up to believe men should withstand pain in its many forms. Then recently, I experienced a dull, constant pain in my right glute and hamstring. It kept me in bed for a day, and I gutted through the pain. After going to a physical therapist, she confirmed sciatica and suggested some stretches, "but not to the point of pain." My chiropractor believes the same. Relief comes, when it does, without pushing myself beyond my limits. An X-ray and an MRI confirms spinal aging, but no bone fracture.
I've gotten relief these past few weeks with dieting, daily stretching, and taking a week's powerful anti-inflammatory. Yet, I have found other pain beatable. In 1991, I ran a marathon. Around mile 18, I got a migraine headache. It disappeared (this had not happened before) and I finished the race. I have not been afflicted since. When it comes, I have learned to focus and not fear or curse it (much) seeing it as a notification, rather than an obstacle.
Eric Silverman
Gentle typo alert: Didion's essay is 'In Bed,' not 'On Bed'
It took me a long time to use pain or discomfort or heartache or any of these as a steppingstone to something else, eventually. And to simply try to see these aa "normal" -- that "normal" doesn't always mean "good" or "perfect" or even "pain free." That all of it - good and bad -- is normal and we shift back and forth all the time. What's the old saying about "dancing in the rain?" Easily said, not always ease to do. But if we somehow see pain, in all its manifestations, is just part of the journey, we can reckon with it. At least, that's my story; and I'm sticking to it.