Pain is the only true source of change.
Last few months I have been studying pain. Pain of a personal nature. Pain associated with feeling of the heart. Pain of emotions.
Getting to understand it. Getting to know it.
I was helped by few people in this study. Someone supplying the pain, someone helping me handle it (like a research assistant helps the principle researcher).
My first observation is that pain can rule and ruin your life.
It will make you loose your desire to do anything, including eat and sleep. Sleep when it comes, is painful because it is really not sleep.When you see food you want to throw up. You forget the things you used to do. Take no interest in life and generally enter a very negative state.
There are several possible solutions to this.
Firstly you can try and leave it all to Time. Time does heal the deepest wounds, although it does leave scars. Clearly Time is not a plastic surgeon.
Secondly you can try and disengage yourself from the source of pain and start the healing process. Kind of like when you get a thorn in your hand you remove it and then bandage the wound. This approach has a major drawback. This approach requires you to be selfish. But, sometimes you just cannot be selfish. Not if someone you care about is stuck in the same pain.
Thirdly you can try and identify if the cause of pain is same as the source or if they are separate. This is important because the cause of pain might be in you while the source is external. So if you remove that cause from within yourself (very difficult to do sometimes especially when you are in a negative state) you do get a certain degree of immunity from the pain.
My second observation is that pain brings a lot of clarity.
Many situations which remain unclear are removed by the pain. Pain of a personal nature, especially in the matters of the heart, often wakes us up and brings us out into the cold hard world. It opens our eyes to certain facts which we were ignoring. Having gone through such an experience I can say surely, that I have achieved a lot of clarity on various issues such as settlement, marriage, love and commitment.
My third observation is that pain teaches us a lesson and quicker we learn it better off we will be.
I learnt several lessons during this Odyssey of Pain.
One of the most painful lesson was that people are not what they appear. They reveal themselves only when they are stressed. Their weakness and their capability to self-deceive is highlighted only at such moments. I found myself asking this simple question: 'What makes people be so self-deceptive when pain is involved?'
Another important lesson I learnt (which thankfully was not a new lesson) was how to be objective when faced with great pain. How to put yourself on the side and help the other person.
How to remove your issues from the equation till the time is right to bring them out. This is very important because if in a situation involving multiple people, everyone is going through a great deal of pain, then someone has to put their pain aside and help people get out of the situation.
Finally I learnt that sometimes you need to give up on people, especially when you can no longer relate with them. It is surprisingly peaceful. When you give up on someone you get rid of half the emotional baggage related with them.
We should look for the lesson rather than concentrating on the pain.
- My first observation is that pain can rule and ruin your life.
- My second observation is that pain brings a lot of clarity.
- My third observation is that pain teaches us a lesson and quicker we
learn it better off we will be in the future.
The nature of change (whether positive or negative) caused by pain
depends on how you deal with the pain.
1) The nature of change (whether positive or negative) caused by
pain depends on how you deal with the pain.
2) There is ALWAYS hope because the future is dynamic and to a
great extent IN YOUR HANDS!
