Pain Hurts

I was reviewing some notes that I was assembling to offer to people who sign up for my monthly e-Newsletter, and I had a chance to go over the section that deals with coping with adversity. It really struck me how deeply ingrained our fear — and even hatred — of pain has become. Of course, we come by it naturally, because, if you're like me, you were probably subject to corporal punishment as a kid. The connection becomes hardwired: 'pain' = 'bad'.

Everything we (in our culture) experience thereafter reinforces that connection: suffering, tragedies, disasters, loss, grief, and anything else that hurts elicits sympathy: "It's too bad you had to go through all that." What it brings up in us (or at least in me) is a mixture of shame ('I must have been bad') and fear ('This will never end'). We'll do almost anything to stop the pain: take drugs, drink alcohol, escape into any other kind of alternate reality that will bring us oblivion. Does it matter that much if it's physical or mental pain?

I was a priest for many years, and I can't divorce myself from my liturgical connection to Easter, especially at the end of Holy Week, into what we called the Sacred Triduum: Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter Sunday. It's a stark reminder to Christians of the inextricable link between life and pain and, from the Christian perspective, that God hurts. There's another lesson that I think too many people leave inside the church: that pain is both a messenger and the price we pay for going to the next level.

We Westerners are all caught up in our maudlin grieving process. The Eastern mind sees the reality differently. Instead of black and purple vestments for Good Friday, Eastern Christians wear gold. To bring it down to the vernacular: no pain, no gain. The Eastern peoples tend to focus on the goal, rather than wallow in the misery that precedes it. Pain isn't 'bad'. It isn't anything at all but a feeling. It sends us a message that something important is happening. And, if we have the courage to face it and move through it, we find growth.

As Nietzsche said, "What doesn't kill me makes me stronger." Did you see the article in the paper about Melissa Stockwell, the wounded Iraq veteran who is fulfilling her dream to become a star athlete? Would she ever have accomplished that if she'd never be wounded?

I was privileged to have  internet marketing expert Kathleen Gage on my Frazzled Entrepreneur internet radio program Thursday night. I asked her what her greatest achievement was. She said it was having the courage to meet the challenges involved in creating her business and pressing forward. However we see it, however we define it, on the other side of the pain is always a Resurrection. Which side is more deserving of our focus?

H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC

Technorati Tags: pain, suffering, Easter, Resurrection, courage, message,
Add to: | Technorati |  Digg |  del.icio.us |  Yahoo |  BlinkList |  Spurl |  reddit |   Furl | 

Comments

[Rariorips]

Lo! Men have become the tool of their tools.
-- Henry David Thoreau

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://blurty.com/users/nedchaneyjg