Pain is something that in one degree or another, within ourselves or on the faces of others, we deal with everyday.

Pain, whether it is physical, mental, spiritual, understood or misunderstood is one of life’s most intimate experiences and runs the gamut of “Aw shucks, taint nothing” to “I just can’t handle this,” all while stalking us all the way from stubbing our toe to breaking a bone to a lifetime of chronic pain. From the tears of sadness to the anguish of not knowing, to finally knowing and sometimes wishing you didn’t. 

Something all of us must realize is pain is different for each person! Even seemingly having the same pain, one person might barely notice it while another is brought to their knees. And yet no matter what, pain is real, no matter who the victim is. Pain is simply just that, real.

Because pain is so individual, I’m writing most of this from my own perspective and my own journey, (So you’ll notice the word “I” a lot.) from my experience and based on the things I’ve done to get me to where I am now. Some worked, some didn’t. Some were immediate and some are still unfolding. Let’s get one thing straight, I can’t tell tell you how to lessen your pain, but I can tell you what I’ve done to lessen mine and the lessons I’ve learned in the process. My hope is that might be at the least a starting point for you.

Pain is like being trapped in a huge building with all the lights out!

You know where you are—kind of.

You know it’s where you don’t want to be.

You can’t see any way out.

And yes, pain is very scary…

Pain is something that others might be able to help with, but even after their help, ultimately it was up to me to walk through or walk with the pain. Ultimately it was up to me to check and see where that switch is and then, time after time, summon the courage to see if I can flip it and “turn the lights on” and the pain off or at least down.

One truth about pain is that the pain that I imagine, is usually much much worse than the actual pain I’ll endure. Lets say I’m laying in bed dreading getting up because I’m imagining, I mean in my heart I “know” how much it will hurt to move, to sit up, to get up and then stand up, but once I finally do get up, oh it still hurts, but not nearly as much as I’d convinced myself it would. In other words, pain doesn’t exists on just one plain, it exists on all of them! The physical, mental and spiritual plains of life. Pain feeds off itself and morphs from an already scary monster into one that, if we allow it to, is unconquerable! That is unless we call it’s bluff!

As if to scare me even more, pain seemed to talk to me all the time. There came a time when I found I needed to start talking back. After being hurt, a friend of mine once told me “It’s only pain, right?” I came to understand and agree with him. That’s how I now verbalize it too. It’s Only Pain. (Sometimes with an ! or two !!) Another friend, when his pain was rolling would sometimes yell “Gregg, I’m feeling very F****ing alive!” I admit that I grabbed that one up too! Both of those phrases spoke to me. So if you ever hear me talking about how *Alive* I feel, now you’ll know.  (Feel free to use these if you’d like to or create a different phrase of your own. Whatever works for you.) Regardless, there comes a time when all of us need to start moving through the pain. Whether we slowly wade through it, blast through it, go under, over or around it, there comes a time to move through our pain. Then it’s time to regroup and recharge or as I call it, “Get Strong Again“ because, I know it’s gonna happen again! And when it’s time to do it all over again, we’ll be ready, each time becoming stronger and going farther than the time before. Each time creating a new definition of courage and from time to time, redefining the limits that we once thought couldn’t be redefined.

What experience tells us about pain is that while varied, sometimes pain will win, but the thing we should remember is,  sometimes pain won’t win, we will. What experience keeps telling us is that, even at its worst, life is about so much more than pain. When we’re in the midst of it, no matter if our pain is Physical, Mental or Spiritual, while we need to acknowledge it, we spend way too much time giving pain attention that it doesn’t deserve. By acknowledging it and then moving on, that means we’ll be able to spend much more time focusing on our own lives and and the lives of those around us. Focusing on how to bring happiness, positivity and more love into and around our lives. Focusing on finding out what we can do and letting that overshadow what we use to be able to do.

Like it or not, pain is a part of us. Like it or not, it’s also up to us to remember that pain is part of our life, it is not our life!

PEACE

    …..Gregg

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