Pain is literally nonsense. So lets find out why. Leave a comment later when you are done.
Pain can be mental or physical. Depending on the degree, either of them can be devastating. In general, everybody is more fascinated by mental pain, because it interferes with directly who you want to be and actions you want to take. Physical pains can also interfere the same way, but if you are selfishly motivated enough, then you will find ways around these minor obstacles, but mental pain directly interferes with your beliefs before you can even take your first step. What can be done?
Physical pain is simple to handle. Get a band-aid and patch it up. If that isn't enough then seek medical advice or self heal by re-evaluating your comfort pockets. Mental pain is more difficult. What brand of band-aid are you going to use to patch up the hole in your heart? Good news is, you can get rid of the pain. Bad news is, it's much easier to prevent than getting rid of it.
First let's focus on preventing pain so that you don't add to your problems. In order to do that, you will need to recognize what pain really is. Pain is one of the emotions in this world that is defined by words. There are plenty of other types of emotions and emotional combinations that can not be explained by words at all. No matter what type of emotion it is, any emotion is actually a simple contrast to fear. That is not to simplify definitions of emotions by weighing them against each other on opposite extremes. For example, opposite of fear isn't necessarily happiness or even fearlessness. It's all a relative contrast, not unrelated individual elements that can exist on their own. I'm saying that ALL emotions are based on fear. It's like the saying that "there is only light when there's darkness to contrast it". If you don't see any shadows then everything will just be a bright blank. If there's no emotional contrast to maximum negativity then there's no emotions at all. That's why when it comes to fear, everybody is equal. Excitement is the feeling of satisfaction of outwitting fear. Anger is the aggressive feeling of fighting sadness. Sadness is the feeling of losing something in face of fear. Happiness is the feeling of gaining something in face of fear. The nature of happiness can be explained by imagining yourself doing something predictable MANY times, or actually doing it many times. For example, watching your favorite movie many times. You might be happy and excited the first few times, but your happiness will decrease the more you do it. There's a reason for this. Our ancestry and development has given us many skills to fight against danger, so anything unpredictable and creative is very appealing and exciting to us. On the other hand, if we have nothing to struggle against then our body will deteriorate due to laziness and we will lose our ability to combat our surroundings. Since our body foresees this possibility, it will resist facing predictable events over and over in two ways, one is to induce boredom as a signal to stop the activity completely, and two is to create a comfort pocket, so that we "blank out" the period of "repeats" and save our energy for more interesting events. All emotions have their explanation based on contrast of fear, but I'll focus on the pain in this piece of writing. So what is pain?
Pain is the one of the more devastating emotions because pain is the acknowledgement of fear. If you are not convinced then lets take another example. Imagine you are currently in a battlefield. You are fighting left and right, and you see people losing limbs and bleeding all over the place. Now lets imagine yourself getting punched in the face by the enemy without actually causing you any major bleeding. That punch will not probably not hurt you at all. It would probably cause a little damage, but it won't give you much pain to consider. You can call it adrenaline or whatever, but you won't acknowledge there is pain because there are much more serious damage that you observed to be happening in your surroundings. Now, lets contrast the previous bloody scenery with a calmer one. Lets say you are reading a book or enjoying a sandwich in the comfort of your living room then someone suddenly punches you in the face. Lets also assume it's the same strength as the punch we discussed in the battlefield. Would this punch hurt? Definitely. Why? The reason is because in a calm surrounding, your body's physical capabilities are not maximized by adrenaline, so in a weaker state, you are more afraid of damage even if it's just a regular punch. I'm not saying adrenaline makes you strong, but it buffs you up with high pressure body mechanisms allowing your body to take blows with less damage and less pain. In a bloody battlefield, a punch is not even recognized as something devastating, because it seems so minor. In a daily environment, however, a punch has a much higher damage value MENTALLY compared to the dangers of a battlefield. This can also be used to describe emotional pain one of the closest emotions to fear. Once pain is acknowledged, you will have trouble even making the right decisions not to mention recovering from it. To prevent that from happening, you will have to prevent and not acknowledge your fear which supports the development of pain.
Like the battlefield example earlier, pain simply does not exist if you don't acknowledge any damage has happened. This also applies to emotional pain. Lets have another example. Imagine that you are five years old and your parent yells at you and calls you a spoiled brat. At that age, and at that moment, you would probably feel hurt (if you don't then think of another example in which you are more vulnerable). Lets imagine the same parent yelled at you and called you a spoiled brat when you are one-hundred-twenty years old. Do you think you would still feel pain? Maybe a little, but I would pretty much assume your pain very little to none. Other than the fact that you have aged, you also realize that you are not a brat at that age. So it doesn't make sense to react with any form of emotional damage. What does this all mean? Pain can only happen when you acknowledge the fear that supports it. That acknowledgement happens simply because you are already a believer of the accusation before you got yelled at for it, or you have always been indecisive or ignorant of certain traits of yours, allowing someone else to cause you direct damage. Lets say for example that you believe you are a loser your whole life, then if you meet someone that accuses you of being a loser, then you will react painfully because you confirmed your feelings with outside influence. In fact, once pain is confirmed and produced, all sorts of feelings can stem from it like anger, jealousy, and hatred, but those emotions can stem from fear itself without pain as a secondary step. Does this mean that you should you have no fear? No. You should enjoy a full spectrum of emotions. Fear also sharpens your mind, due to it's nature to strengthen your resolve to struggle against your environment. Besides, your positive emotions relies on your negative emotions to exist.
Preventing pain can be done by looking at the bigger picture of your whole life (if that's not enough then involve the whole world's life), and constantly maintain a habit of looking down on your current fears to not acknowledge it's intensity and produce unnecessary amounts of pain. It's analogical to the battlefield example earlier. The reason that punch didn't hurt is simply because there are bigger and more dangerous threats out there. To prevent pain, a good idea is to think higher and much more serious things that you should consider strategically, so you can think ahead. For example, lets say you have stage fright and the pressure you have to endure by going on stage is giving you unbelievable amounts of pain. First calm down by thinking back to the purpose of going on stage. Think about the bigger meaning you are trying to express. Instead of being concerned about the stage and the audience's "pre-opinions", be concerned about why you "definitely" needed to be heard by your audience. Think of any feeling or reason that brought you here today. The reason should be so big and important that you will still push yourself to go through all the random reactions your body is giving you and deliver your message. Whatever you do, find the true purpose that motivated you to commit yourself to doing. If you are not doing anything and simply receiving instructions from teachers, parents, friends, significant others, coaches, and you are getting "sick" of it, and feeling in pain, then think about two elements. One is time, the other is purpose. For purpose, think about why you absolutely have to listen or not listen, as a direct connection to your future (which can happen really quickly if you think hard enough). For time, think about how long a your lifespan can be. If you are destined to have a short life span, then maybe you can consider doing it another way, but if you believe you are like average, with the potential to live up to at least eighty years old, then do a very quick contrast. Is the time investment dedicated to listening take up more than fifty percent of your life span? If it does, then it's time to discriminate between useful information and useless information objectively. If it does not then endure, because you know it will just be a small "sacrifice" of time in your life, considering how long "average life" can actually last. Even if you follow all these steps, you will still need to acknowledge some parts of your fears, which is a natural mechanism to keep you alive, but minimizing it is the key. However, what if you are already in pain and prevention is no longer an option?
Getting rid of pain while you are in pain is much more difficult, because you have acknowledged the pain, and you have already made the mistakes to support it (those mistakes can also be emotional). What does it mean? It means that a comfort pocket has been formed for your current pain. If you are stuck in this scenario then you will have lots of work to do to get over your pain. First step you have to take is to prevent this pain from spreading to other areas of your life. Break connections that you formed in relation to it. You have to minimize the damage before it eats up your life. For example, lets say that you just got kicked out of your house, because you were considered "useless" by others in the household (of course if you can prevent that belief it's better, but if its too late then read on.). Second step is to be taken even more strictly which is to sit down, relax and begin listing all the things you are really good at or skillful at. Don't begin judging which skill is "important" or "not important", because the key is to list it all out. Don't lie to yourself and start listing all the things you are not good at, and beginning self criticism. Just make a list. Get some pen and paper to do it (pencil is fine, or marker, or write in the sand with your finger, it doesn't matter!!!). After you made a thorough list, try to remember that no matter how bad you think of yourself, this list is not to be contaminated, because you are absolutely good at them. Don't start hypnotizing yourself into believing the opposite. Don't start believing those skills are useless, whatever they are. Maybe you believe you are really good at crying, and you believe its a very useless skill. Don't think that way. You simply don't know how to put it into practical use that can aid your success in life yet. Once you've done this, your pain shouldn't spread anymore. Third step is to look deep into your pain. Since your pain has developed, a specific comfort pocket has already been created to contain it. You will have to face it head on or you will never be able to uproot the problem. To complete this step, you have to first explain your pain in detail. Pain is a very vague emotion most of the time. There are many occurrences in which your pain can not be explained at the absence of the "source". For example, lets say you argued with your best friend and both of you "forgave each other" later on, but for some strange reason, both of you still feel an illogical "wall" or "distance". The relationship is in pain, but the reason is unclear. The reason for this phenomenon is because both of you are avoiding the real reason which is keeping the pain acknowledged and ALIVE. We usually aren't very clear as in why we are in pain. This course of action can be due to any reason, but to get rid of your pain permanently, you have to find out and do it fast. Our memories are stored in subconscious comfort pockets, so the longer you wait, the more unclear the reason of pain will become, though the truth is unchanged, it's much harder to withdraw from your memories. To do that, you will have to really think back to your pain and clearly express it into words that can describe it. Once you find out the reason for your pain, then the next step is to transform it.
Pain is a strong emotion due to it's close relationship with fear, so comfort pockets centered around it are also very strong. Forgetting and ignoring it is impossible. Don't even bother. Even if you "temporarily forget it", it will come back one day and hurt you. However, transforming it is still within the range of your abilities. There are several obstacles you have to handle to transform it.
First obstacle you should try to bypass, is the fact that you acknowledged your fear in the first place, creating this pain. Since you already did, it's impossible to reverse the deep acknowledgement. The only method remaining to resolve this obstacle is to make yourself stronger so that your pain seem much less harmful and aggressive. You will have to find more important tasks to complete. The general public relies heavily on this method but has failed to completely remedy the problem. The reason is because this method can only temporarily suppress your pain, but it doesn't contain enough strength alone to eliminate your pain completely. For example, lets say you lost your favorite pet that has been with you for ten years. Lets also say that you are two are very close, practically as close as married couples. You are in so much pain, you decided to take up tennis to forget your pain, and forget about the past. The flaw of this method is the possibility of encountering random events that can trigger this memory. Lets say you randomly meet someone who holds a pet that looks, acts, behaves exactly the same way as your dead pet. If you can't emotionally feel the pet example, then substitute the pet with family members, friends, or significant other. Imagine losing them, or maybe you already have. Any encounter has a possibility of resurfacing your past and making you suffer again. However, you'll still have to proactively find some goal to attain to bypass this first obstacle. After you complete this step, then you will have to take the next step in transformation
After you minimized the damage of your pain, then the next step is to look deeply into your pain. This step is rather difficult, so you will have to learn to take it slowly. For this step, you have to do a little meditation. If you're not a fan of meditating, now's your chance to change your mind. It doesn't involve any religion. It's only the art of mastering yourself. For this meditation, you have to relax, take deep breaths, and let your mind travel back to the time and event when you suffered the pain, for dead pet example above, that would be the moment you realized your pet was dead. I want you to think of your pain and let your mind and body suffer once more, but since we minimized it, the damage shouldn't be too serious. The reason for this exercise is because our pains are usually amplified by the pressure of the situation, so remembering it in a relaxed environment (even though you might not feel relaxed) like during meditation will allow you to look at event more clearly in a third person perspective without adding unnecessary oil to the fire of your pain. Once you remember, tears, anger, and frustration might come. It's alright, let yourself cry the cry, yell your yell. Take deep breaths and let the feelings come and go as smoothly as you can. Don't hold them in and think too much. Best option is to not think at all and just feel. Feel it come and feel it go. If you can separate different emotions apart then break them apart. Don't let them conglomerate and contaminate each other. Pain itself can be amplified by other emotions including happiness, sadness, anger, boredom, hatred, etc so be careful. Different emotions can be caused by different events you had in the past. They don't necessarily relate to your pain, but they can contribute to it, if not used right. For example, you feel pain from losing a pet you've owned for a long time. At some point you might think about the happy moments you had with your pet, and you realize those good times are over and feel pain. The pain you feel should be isolated from the happy memories you had related to the same loss. They should not contaminate each other. If you had happy memories then treat it as a once in a lifetime experience that is part of living, making it enjoyable and fruitful. Its similar to having dessert. Just savor and remember how much you enjoy the dessert you had, instead of becoming frustrated over the fact that it's poop that comes of out of your butt now. Once you completed the previous two steps then your pain is pretty much harmless, but here comes the most important part which can only happen after you completed the previous two steps.
The last obstacle to bypass is to try to understand the big picture. In other words, how this pain can help you in your future. Believe in it too. Treat it like an asset. Pain when synchronized with your whole being can aid you and become a very helpful tool. This step can be taken even after you prevented your pain from happening. For example, for the pet example earlier, consider the death of your pet as a reason to protect weak beings from being hurt. Think of destiny trying to help you understand how to feel the preciousness of life of weak creatures. You can also think of many other things the death of your pet can help you or teach how to walk the path of your life with strength.
Getting through the whole process of getting rid of pain as opposed to preventing pain can be quite time consuming and difficult so I usually don't recommend anybody take this route in life just to add some strength. There's plenty of other ways. Nevertheless, strength is strength, better than a burden. With this pain as your past and your asset, anything that repeats in the future similar to this pain will simply strengthen your resolve and increase your motivation. No matter what you do simply don't give up and you will definitely find your way.
No comments:
Post a Comment