In your life, it would seem like you would do everything you could to avoid pain. After all, that’s the way our bodies are designed and that’s what our instincts were crafted to do. “Avoiding pain” is a great motivator, yet pain is not something most of us seek out. So why do we still experience so much of it?
The Motivation For Pain
You might want to ask yourself what your motivation for pain really is. This sounds like a trick question, but if you are honest with yourself, you might be surprised to admit that you do have a reason for being in pain. For example, if you notice that people pay attention to you when you have a headache, you might notice you get more headaches. If you see that you simply get attention when another drama unfolds in your life, you might (albeit subconsciously) encourage more drama in your life. This can also be referred to as a control drama.
The Vicious Cycle of Perceived Pain
It can become a vicious cycle of pain that we don’t even recognize anymore because we’re so hooked. Only after sitting alone and thinking about our run ins with pain can we begin to see a pattern of our own involvement. Even when it seems like there’s no root cause to our pain, we can trace it back to a skewed perception of a situation, turning it into a painful ordeal instead of something that just rolls off our backs. Could it just be an excuse we give ourselves to bail out of another situation that we are not comfortable in?
Control Dramas and Comfort Zones
Pain is a pretty good reason to stop doing what you are working on right now! We tend to play out little control dramas to ourselves and make up stories and excuses that justify and give us reason to quit. Don’t recognize these symptoms? Well, welcome to superhero status! Most people have this ability. I fight off these excuses every day. Sometimes they come by thick and fast. I know that’s when I’m out of my comfort zone.
So how can we stop the perceived pain? First of all, there are some rules to life that you might want to begin following:
- Emotions. Don’t take things personally
- Concience. You aren’t the only one that has to do everything
- Guilt. You don’t have to be anything more than who you are (or want to be)
Control The Situation
You can start this process of relearning your pain responses by writing down everything that causes you pain in a journal for a few days.
Once this time is over, look over the things you have listed and honestly assess whether you could have controlled the situation. If you could have, then you know you are inflicting your own pain. And now you can do something about it!
You can read more about Control Dramas in “The Celestine Prophecy” by James Redfield.
Have a most outstanding day
Sean Rasmussen
Success Communicator
SeanRasmussen.com © 2004 – 2008
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Very appropriate, Sean. Pain is only something our mind manifest and can be manipulated to whom that desires to control it. We see elite athletes, the Anzacs and many others who have overcome the fear of pain and became champions.
To dissociate yourself with pain, when meditating or in a high state of mental awareness you could create like a box where you put it all your problems in and then lock it. Give it a “This is SPARTA!!!’ and kick it into space, into the ocean or into a ditch.
What do you have to lose. If you took the chance to control pain and proceed to be sucessful are you far better of than not proceeding at all.
Control pain, don’t let it control you.
Jake OUT!
Well said, Jake. It is definitely mind over matter. No question about that.
This seems to be something that manifests from our development and envirnment we grew up in. Especially if this is something we have seen our friends or even parents do. Sadly, I know too many that are trapped in this cycle…
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Emotional pain is our own reaction to things that happen. The mother of a friend is a hypochondriac – her way of getting attention is to maon and complain about her physical condition. I know another guy who is constantly in emotional turmoil because he can’t form a long term relationship. I see people who get upset if someone cuts in front of them in traffic or if they miss the green traffic light. But the truth of the matter is that all of these people have become comfortable with the way they react to certain situations. I once heard that people aren’t happy unless they have something to complain about. While I am not sure I agree with that it does suggest that people are comfortable in their pain.
In recent times I have made some major changes to the way I live my life. In 2003 I decided to change the way I looked at myself and the world. I started making different choices about how I reacted to situations and I am a much happier person for it.
Hi Sean,
I think that if you’re in a situation that you don’t like and you have been trying to change it and failing; you need to ask yourself what the payoff is for it. There is a reason why we are living with a situation that we profess to hate. We have to be able to be really honest with ourselves.
When we get honest about why we are doing this, it will become easier to change the situation and get a more positive result. The times that I have been guilty of this; I’ve been sabotaging myself because of fear. Once I realized and acknowledged the fear; I could make the changes I needed to move forward.
Giving power to pain…I never want to be there again if you have ever had serious back injury causing pain you will understand it may not be that easy, I know what I have to do to ensure the pain does not return as I know if I do certain things I get a warning niggle so I stop.
That is where my power over pain is, other types of pain are far more easily controlled or eliminated and I will not give any power to it again.
It is interesting how pain can be used as an excuse to give up on things rather than seeking a solution which doesn’t involve pain. An example of this me was some knee pain I started developing while running. Initially I tried to exercise through it and went to a physio to try and get treatment to fix it. When this didn’t work I stopped running altogether as I didn’t want to risk permanent damage.
While a legitimate excuse, it took me many many months before I went to a specialist to confirm if there was long term damage being done. In the mean time I would try running from time to time, but always ended up defeated. Once I actually committed to seeing a specialist to confirm whether my fears were well founded, I rapidly got a solution of sorts to my problem.
The Dr told me I wasn’t doing permanent damage, but that I needed to do specific exercises to make the pain go away. So I quickly bought myself a knee strap and decided to tentatively get back into running, and discovered that courtesy of the strap my knee held together well enough so that running ceased to be anywhere near as painful. I’m still working on getting my knee completely better, but am running as much as I want by using the strap and am no longer motivated to avoid running in order to avoid pain. If only I had invested in the $25 knee strap upfront I would have saved many months and hundreds of dollars in physio fees.
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Yes the thought of pain can be overpowering. However I have learnt to deal with it.
For a time I would get overpowering headaches which I thought would never end. I was almost expecting it to happen.
I finally got over it by just putting up with the pain without reaching for the pills. Gradually it got less and less and then gone.
The power of the mind!
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Great Post Sean,
I am not a big believer in medication. Actually I can not remember the last time I visted the doctor. Since moving house we haven’t even checked out where the local doctor is. If I do happen to get a tension headache its usually from lack of sleep so its simple, i go straight to sleep. I am into popping pain relief and stay away from even panadol.
Its actually true how they say that if you are relying on pain medication for headaches/sore backs etc, after awhile the medication no longer works. Pain is usually associated to what is going on around you, so I agree Sean – have a look at what the issue is in your life before masking the issue. We have a drama king in our house, and we have learnt the best way to deal with the behaviour is too ignore. It soon stops the dramatic behaviour in a heart beat.
Great Post, reminds me how to stay healthy.
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It takes a lot of honesty to do this review properly. It’s a breakthrough if you can do it.
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Pain has been a BIG motivator in my life. A friend at school asked me to bend his finger back to demonstrate his lack of pain experience. I experienced excruciating pain with a fraction of the force I applied to him. I wonder where his pain free life has led him to now?
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