Pain Gets a Bad Rap!

“Everyone is down on pain, because they forget one important thing about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.
Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another.”

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.
Sometimes it feels that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown, like leaving familiar surroundings for a new country. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of ...your plans and expectations. There are the sharp little pains of failure, and the dull aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn to shreds. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life as they grow and learn, of reconnecting with others after many years, and chatting about the path that life has taken them, of finding those friends who say, "oh, you too?" Then there's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens. I have many friends like that. You know who you are...those friends who I can call day or night...we may not speak everyday, but our friendship has lasted over decades, and we are always there for each other no matter what.
And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, of happiness, which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life. Have you ever experienced that? I have, and I have found that it is so much better to share it with friends, for in doing so, your triumph becomes their triumph, also.

The stars are scattered all over the sky like shimmering tears, there must be great pain in the eye from which they trickled. Karl Georg Bchner

Having a Life is not just measured by the span of a natural lifetime, but also by your successes, your failures, your joys, your pain, and your dreams, but most of all being happy in that lifetime. When it comes to sharing your lifetime with someone, make sure you can have a Life with them because you dont want to waste a lifetime on the wrong one.

Pain of failure, loss
Is all that I see down the memory lane.
Pain of failure, loss
Is all that makes me cry all over again.

Walking alone on the unknown paths,
Crying alone for the unforgettable past…

I pray to God for my last wish.
I pray to see you for the one last moment.
But,
All I get the tears, the pain of loss.

Losing you was my fate,
But that broke my dreams mate.
Now, I have no power to rise up again,
Because
I feel the pain of failure, loss.

I am tired of rising and falling now,
But, your memories follows me, don’t know how.
My eyes are searching for my love,
Do come and see the pain in my heart, my love.

I just feel the pain of failure, loss.
Walk alone down on the unknown paths.
Only get the tears….
Pain of failure, loss…….

Poem by Priya Batra

"We're all human. We're all of us equally naked before the jaws of pain." Jim Butcher

"What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life - to strengthen each other in all labor, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent, unspeakable memories." George Eliot

"Happiness is not a life without pain, but rather a life in which the pain is traded for a worthy price." Orson Scott Card

Refocus the brain

To thrive in life while dealing with chronic pain, the individual must first address their mental attitude or focus. In other words, if you or someone you know struggles with the battle of chronic pain on a daily basis, the only thing on the mind is pain. They always talk about it because they always think about it.

I remember those painful years, running from one doctor to the next trying to find out what was going on with my body. It seemed that one organ after another was being affected....and no doctor could figure out what was going on until my neurologist had a suspicion. After that I was relatively pleased that I finally had something to blame for the pain that I was in. I could now focus on treatment and healing. This allowed me to stop talking about my pain all of the time. The truth of the matter was, I needed to change my mental attitude or thought process.

There were many times when I couldn't go to work because "I’m in too much pain.” So I would stay home. Sometimes I think I set myself up with a defeated mindset. I know I didn't really, but I moved on and learned how to heal from the pain, and even if in pain, how to move on from the pain I'm experiencing.

To be accurate, pain has a lot of worth. Pain is our body’s natural alarm system or mechanism that says something is wrong, damaged or broken and needs repair. When we twist an ankle or break an arm, the condition sends to our brain a very intense signal – pain! It can cause one to wince, bite their lip and even shed some tears. This type of pain is referred to as acute pain.

Acute pain can be a forerunner to chronic pain in many instances. Acute pain needs to be tended to immediately. Generally speaking the first line of defense is to reduce inflammation. Once the inflammation is reduced, the pain signal to the brain starts to lessen and in a very short period of time, no pain is felt. But, what about pain that lingers for more than a few weeks, or even a few months? This is referred to as chronic pain.

Chronic pain can make someone a prisoner of the war they’ve been in battle with for years. Unlike acute pain, chronic pain can become a consistent part of one’s entire life. Because I have personally struggled with chronic pain for the last two decades, I know firsthand what it feels like to break free from pain......most of the time anyway.

When I try to explain what chronic pain feels like to others who have no pain, it’s hard for them to relate. So, I often use the analogy of someone pinching your skin with their fingers or worse using a pair of vice grip pliers and never easing up. Chronic pain is constant, unrelenting and debilitating.

So how can one expect to thrive when suffering with chronic pain?

Mental Imagery

By shifting the mind on other mental images or distractions, i.e. speaking at an event or TV show, I soon realized I was not conscious of the very pain that was always crippling me. By refocusing my mind or thoughts to another image, etc. I reduced and even temporarily eliminated the pain signal to my brain.

But what does someone do on a day to day basis to be able to thrive while in pain?

I understand not everyone takes part in regular events that can act as a distraction, but one can still create mental images on a day to day basis. The process is simple and takes practice but as you are mastering these mental images you will reduce your pain. In fact, just the developmental process alone will bring pain relief.