Season 2, Episode 8: Encountering Pain
Pain is a fundamental, inescapable human experience that typically elicits a lot of suffering, sorrow, resistance, and even a sense of hopelessness and meaninglessness. Pain is an experience that we, human beings, cannot ignore. It demands our attention, and involves us fully-physically, psychologically, and spiritually. When present, pain encompasses our existence and consumes our life. Living in pain day after day may take away from our capacity to live a full life, severely dampens our joy of living, and makes us question who we are and for what we are living. Particularly, chronic, relentless pain without a clear, treatable cause and with no foreseeable ending in sight greatly challenges our capacity to endure life and to find joy and meaning in our existence.
Even when the pain is mainly experienced in our body, its echoes and impact are strongly felt at the emotional, mental level, which creates a distinct kind of psychological suffering, usually accompanied by anxiety and depression. Pain is a holistic experience that, regardless of its primarily root-somatic or psychological-, involves our body and mind. This makes for an all-encompassing suffering that most people try to avoid or want to eradicate at all costs.
While living in pain is incredibly hard, learning how to move from living in pain towards living with pain is a hopeful albeit difficult road. Living with pain does not mean that the pain is not felt or that the pain goes away. Rather it means that we can learn gradually how to change our attitude from opposing and resisting pain and overfocusing on removing the pain at all costs to an attitude of slowly making room for the pain and open up to the possibilities that emerge because of the presence of pain in our life. For instance, if someone is living with chronic pain and the many limitations that accompany this condition, gradually, that person may discover that by slowing down and acknowledging some physical limitations, they may begin to value time differently and may discover different ways of engaging with life and living life even with limitations. Living with pain may sometimes reduce the experience of suffering considerably or at least can make the suffering less absurd and cruel. Encountering our pain in a personal way by asking ourselves how we are asked to live now that this pain is part of our existence could change a life of relentless, meaningless pain to a dialogue with one of the most difficult human experiences, and could help us preserve our dignity as persons.
Living in pain shows up very frequently in clients who reach out for psychotherapeutic help. Usually, these clients come to therapy not only because of their somatic pain but also because of the anxiety and sorrow that they feel in relation to their pain. Usually, helping these clients to live with pain in a more personal, free way rather than feeling victims of it takes time and patience. Moving from hating one’s pain to letting it be and finding ways to live a good life is a long, challenging process but nonetheless it can transform living in pain into conscious, meaningful suffering or living with pain in a personally chosen way.
References:
Viktor Frankl - Man’s Search for Meaning
Irvin Yalom - Existential Psychotherapy
