On the Nature of Pain
In this culture there is a deep sense of personal isolation and social alienation that arises, at least in part, from our failure to skillfully relate to pain. We are not trained to deal mindfully with pain. But because experiencing pain in many forms is an inevitable part of being alive in the world, we need methods for relating to, thinking about, and working with pain.
- Jeffrey Eaton, from A Fruitful Harvest
I was comfortably nestled into my rattan chair, shielded from the bright sun of my south-facing balcony by the curtains I strung through our clothesline. In front of me was a skinny paperback with an intriguing title — A Fruitful Harvest, Essays After Bion.
As I immersed myself into the title, the chapter that struck me and the one I kept coming back to was one on the fate of pain.
The fate of pain
Eaton claims, simply and succinctly, that we don’t know how to deal with pain. Despite the simple fact that pain is all around us — whether we stub our toe on the way to the kitchen or feel a deep loneliness on a Thursday night while watching TV — what we as humans do best with pain is minimize it, ignore it, judge it or pretend like it isn’t there.
I read through this and couldn’t help but pause and think of how many times I have done the same. How many times my pain, whether physical or emotional, was paired with a judgement of what I thought about that pain: “This is nothing, stop being so weak,” “Others have it worse than you,” “What makes you think you are allowed to feel sorry for yourself?”
But what Eaton so astutely points out is that our pain, unacknowledged, only grows.
Being both a psychoanalyst and a Buddhist, he draws on the experience of both disciplines to state a simple formula:
Pain = pain X resistance to pain.
The more we resist, the more we suffer. For some, getting to the point of hating pain, hating emotion, hating any expression of our humanity. At which point, pathology could develop and mental health issues may arise.
What, then, do we do with our pain?
Get curious. Acknowledge its existence and begin by asking questions. Why is this pain here? Where does it originate? What is it trying to tell me? What am I needing in this moment that I am not receiving? Where may I need help?
Our pain is asking for a relationship. It wants to be seen and heard. It has stories to tell. It has a right to exist.
For some of us, pain can feel overwhelming. Even looking in its direction may feel like staring into the face of a black hole that threatens to suck us in and never let us see the light of day.
Eaton reiterates how taking bites out of the mass of pain, fragmenting it and working on it piece by piece can help lessen the processing needed at one time and help us build resilience to working with our pain.
How to recognize that you may be avoiding pain?
Here are a few symptoms that I have observed in myself and others over the years:
1. Putting your pain on others
A hurt person hurts others. How many times have you found yourself dysregulated, angry, out of sorts, and then turned around and yelled at your partner? We’ve all done it. Next time you do it, pay attention — it can be a clue to discover where your pain dwells and what you need.
2. Hiding from pain
Have you been working 60 hours a week? Playing video games for many uninterrupted hours? Drinking more wine? Reading more novels? All of these activities can walk the thin line between being coping mechanisms that we need and outlets for hiding from pain. You know for yourself where that threshold it — tune in and see if you are engaging in these activities as a way of turning away from your pain.
3. Denial
“Hey, are you ok?” your friend asks you. “Oh, yeah, I am totally fine. This is no big deal,” you respond. Your friends face looks sad and concerned, you have no idea why they are looking at you that way. Sound familiar?
Denying our pain is one of the easiest ways of avoiding it. If we don’t look at it, then it’s not there, right? Turning toward pain takes courage and support — make sure to ask for help in this endeavor, if you can.