Pain Doesn’t Matter?…

Pain doesn’t matter…

What do I mean it doesn’t matter? 

It’s a confusing statement: Because pain and the avoidance of pain can be one of the strongest motivating forces in our lives. 

Pain is a signal - and we need to be discerning - for example, pain from an injury is a signal to protect that area - and you may need to avoid certain movements for a while.

But very often, in our modern life, pain (and the avoidance of it) is  given more meaning than it should have. It overshadows our values and life’s purpose… and if we allow it, managing pain becomes the central purpose of our life. 

If our main mode of operation is avoiding pain, then what happens is our lives get very small…

Our minds are very good at predicting what might cause pain and if we listen to the mind, we may start avoiding the things that make life meaningful. 

Physically, we move less, lose fitness, and miss out on the activities and the communities we once loved. 

Emotionally, we might shut down and avoid vulnerability - the word vulnerable actually means wound-able - exposing our soft underbellies to possible hurt… But without the willingness to be vulnerable, we lose out on being seen authentically, connecting to others in a deep way, or risking the failures that could also be the greatest source of both growth and success. 

It’s not really that pain doesn’t matter - it just doesn’t matter like we think it does. We need to be discerning. 

What does matter is what we make of the pain and how we react to it. 

We can feel the pain and hear the mind’s reaction to it but we need to treat it like a passenger in a bus— A passenger that can sometimes be wise and even a good navigator, but at other times is just making noise and voicing opinions—  your job is to keep its hands off the steering wheel of your life and keep driving the bus in the direction of what makes life most fulfilling. 

What would you do if pain wasn’t holding you back?