We have a very destructive relationship to pain. We tend to numb and avoid it. Running from pain is a different kind of suffering than facing it. Continually numbing pain with screens, pills, drugs, or alcohol is true suffering compared to feeling it.
Here’s a quote from Michael Brown’s The Presence Process: “Consider this possibility: One of the most uncomfortable aspects of our pain and discomfort may well be our resistance to them.”
Difficult trauma has left me with a hefty emotional load. And, even after years of processing emotions and writing about emotional awareness, I still sometimes make the mistake of avoiding difficult emotions. But I’ve learnt that there is no freedom in that. There is no freedom in being on a treadmill of avoidance.
When we feel, we become present. When we avoid, we remain imprisoned.
As with all things in life, nothing contains only good or bad. Pain is seen as negative. But pain is also a teacher. Pain is a portal into presence. I’ve repeatedly noticed that people who have challenges with pain—whether that pain is physical or emotional—have an accelerated path to presence. It is not always the case that the individual will become more present. But pain is an opportunity. And in many ways, presence is the best antidote to pain.
Why?
Because presence is the thing that lets the difficult fight fade into mere sensations in the body in this moment.
We live in a society that is largely constructed around avoidance of all things difficult and painful. I often wonder if this is good. Are we choosing comfort over maturity? Comfort over true emotional growth? People who embrace pain as a teacher tend to integrate the suffering. They tend to dissolve the grip of the victim mindset. That’s how we gain more agency of our lives. Not through the endless efforts of avoidance.