Who Is Responsible For Your Pain?

Who is responsible for your pain?

 

We’ve all heard the horror story of the person who has ignored physical pain. Let’s say the man ignored the headaches for years. Perhaps the headaches began as infrequent and minor; perhaps they began after a car accident. Either way, they grow in frequency, intensity, and duration. Finally, he can’t take the pain any longer and sees a physician. The physician runs tests, finds abnormalities, and makes the terrifying diagnosis of brain cancer. The man makes a choice: to watch and see what happens, or to treat the cancer aggressively. Regardless of what they choose, the power is in their awareness of the malady and the decision to treat and improve their life or their outcomes. The treatment may not be pretty, it may increase the pain, it may have undesirable side effects. He does the treatment anyhow, understanding the impact it can have, and because he endures the pain of treatment, he adds years to his life, which would otherwise have ended within the year. We don’t question this. We don’t wonder why the man didn’t endure the headaches and why he sought treatment. If we hear of someone in pain, we offer solutions and encourage him to see a physician. We call them a fool if we find out they have had intensifying pain for years and didn’t intervene. We know that if we ignore physical pain, the results will be catastrophic, and potentially lethal. We have an intricate system of nerves that can help us detect specific areas in our bodies that are in trouble, but it is our responsibility to pay attention to them.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

I spent the past week in my office with people in tremendous emotional pain. It is the season for emotional wounds to be intensified by the holidays, and my sessions have been intense. I see people ignoring the information that the pain is offering them! It is not pleasant to pay attention to pain, but if we don’t, we will perpetuate the pain by hurting someone else. I have read to my clients an incredible blog post by Glennon Melton Doyle (“Momastery”) titled “Pain Is Not A Mistake,” many times in the past few days. Her article is profound because she asks us to pay attention to discomfort of pain instead of slamming the door and not acknowledging it. Glennon says pain is like a hot potato and we tend to want to get rid of it as soon as we can. Unkind people have simply passed the hot potato of pain on to someone else and must learn how to manage their pain and their reaction to it in order for any relationship to be meaningful and fulfilling.

Some expect my role as a therapist to be one that reduces their pain. The truth is that I help people slow down, truly experience the pain and pay attention to it, and help them learn what it is teaching them. THIS is how people can be different at the core, and how we can have the relationships we want to have! Just as we do with physical pain, we pay attention to what it does and when, we order tests, and we treat. With emotions our tendency is to do the opposite: we isolate, we stop talking, and we get really reactive! If we treated our physical pain like we do our emotional pain, we will be unhealthy and have short life-spans.

Who is responsible for my pain?  ME.

We are responsible for our pain no matter who or what we think caused it. We must take control or we will be a victim to our pain because it will drive us to be an angry, closed, hurtful, and broken person.  If someone trips me and I fall and break my arm, I am responsible for processing the signals of pain and for seeking out the help I need to be repaired. Only I know my pain and only I know how it feels and can change what it makes me do. I can suffer each day and stuff my mangled arm into my shirt and pretend it isn’t impacting me, and deal with the long-term effects of not treating the fracture. It isn’t the fault of the person who tripped me if I don’t choose to fix my injury. It isn’t the fault of the doctor is unable to properly reset my injury if I let my broken arm be untreated for weeks. It is only my responsibility to take action. If I don’t’ take action, that is on me.

Imagine a world where we all took responsibility for our own pain and didn’t pass it along to those around us? Imagine if we all leaned into the pain, learned how it made us act, took responsibility for it, and repaired relationships that are hurting.  It starts with you.