considering pain

In many faith traditions (not all) the word “sin” is couple in some way with pain. Cain was in pain over the favor shown to his brother Abel and committed murder (sin). Peter was afraid of pain that would follow his acknowledgement of his teacher Jesus and denied this relationship (sin). There are many more examples in the Judeo and Christian traditions. As I understand the Buddhist tradition on pain there is a different perspective. [I am only beginning to learn what treasures can be uncovered in this ancient philosophy.] Pain is part of life and the key is to not be captive to the suffering induced by pain. Sin in the Buddhist tradition either doesn’t exist or has something to do with ignorance. [There are some good blogs on this topic at Buddhism.about.com] In the Islamic tradition sin is about defying or ignoring the will of Allah. Pain is a means of strengthening one’s faith in this tradition. (beliefnet.com, blog by Ellen Leventry, “Why bad thing happen”)

“Sin” is a word, a label. I would rather talk about the pain we experience in our lives. Pain—physical, psychic, emotional, mental, relational, spiritual—is a reality. It’s something we experience in life. To put the label sin on any of these experiences of life diminishes the impact of the experience in my way of thinking. Pain can take many forms from anguish to restlessness, fear to anxiety to distraction. There are many shadings to pain and the common denominator is that all pain can cripple us. It vies for supremacy in our mental functioning. Mental clarity and acuity is as available to us as our deepest fear. That is, the stronger our fear the less clear we can think about reality and action. Our pain and fear and anxiety can even lull us into thinking that we are seeing things clearly from behind the veil of pain and our actions and decisions become responsive to a skewed perspective.

So how do we work with pain? How do we get out from under its grip to a different reality? Athletes are often told to “push through” their pain. I believe this means that they are to ignore the pain and just keep moving, doing whatever exercise they are engaged in. This doesn’t mean the pain goes away. It means that they don’t give priority to it in their mind. They think about other things—the routines they have learned and practiced repeatedly or imagine themselves at the finish line, etc.

On the other hand, counselors will subscribe to the prescription of naming our pain so as to lessen its power over our actions and decisions. The theory and experience is that naming the source or origin of our pain, acknowledging its existence, gives us choices that do not exist if we merely react to the presence of our pain.

This search for employment that I am experiencing brings pain in the form of fear and anxiety. I fear not being able to work again because I am aging out of the market. I have anxieties that I am not doing enough to find work and that the meaning of my life will be lost. So I use both practices for dealing with my pain. I push through my fears each day to find things I can do and to look for signs of hope and meaning. I name my anxieties here and with friends and listen to their feedback. I work at discriminating what words and thoughts from others are life giving and which as life stifling. And I try to give priority to the life-giving words. I name the life giving ones out loud to others with the hope that they might be infused with life as well.

I think that probably both methods of dealing with pain can be put to good use in lessening pain’s power. Whatever tact you take to lessen the power of pain in your experience, know that sometimes pain can lead us to a window when doors are closed. Pain can and will serve a purpose, can and will serve life if we acknowledge it and work with it.