MK - I find your writing about the inevitability and utility of pain quite interesting. In recent years, I’ve dipped my toe into the practice of Mindfulness Meditation, particularly enjoying the readings of Eckhart Tolle, Jon Kabat Zinn, and Dan Harris. While it appears you’ve done a thorough dive re: our primitive instinct to avoid discomfort, it wasn’t until recent years that I learned how important confronting pain is in terms of personal development. Indeed, growth requires friction.
I had teacher once explain the difference between pain and suffering. And he described that while pain is a surefire, intrinsic part of life, suffering occurs solely when we make a conscience choice to resist the pain. When I first heard this, it struck me as such a transparent, unmmistakable law of psychiatry that shame nearly overtook me. How much of my 20’s (fine, maybe early 30’s) had I spent misgidedly chasing away pain, using all the usual tricks. And why had I been so eager to make the tradeoff for suffering over pain?
Like with most other things worthwhile, there are no shortcuts. I’m on my third year of a near-daily Mindfulness Meditation and while I’m certainly no Tolle or Kabat Zinn, I’ve learned to not only embrace the pain but use it to continue to grow. - Chappell
Chappell - I love this (and it also inspired me to meditate this morning after not practicing it for the past few months.)
The idea of pain vs. suffering was something that came up in the research for the post, and is something I'll be exploring more, as it does seem like a cornerstone of life. The term "all the usual tricks" rings true here for pain avoidance for sure. Pain doesn't seem to be a choice in life, but if suffering can be couched as one, maybe we can lessen the latter if we can't necessarily do much about the former.
MK - I find your writing about the inevitability and utility of pain quite interesting. In recent years, I’ve dipped my toe into the practice of Mindfulness Meditation, particularly enjoying the readings of Eckhart Tolle, Jon Kabat Zinn, and Dan Harris. While it appears you’ve done a thorough dive re: our primitive instinct to avoid discomfort, it wasn’t until recent years that I learned how important confronting pain is in terms of personal development. Indeed, growth requires friction.
I had teacher once explain the difference between pain and suffering. And he described that while pain is a surefire, intrinsic part of life, suffering occurs solely when we make a conscience choice to resist the pain. When I first heard this, it struck me as such a transparent, unmmistakable law of psychiatry that shame nearly overtook me. How much of my 20’s (fine, maybe early 30’s) had I spent misgidedly chasing away pain, using all the usual tricks. And why had I been so eager to make the tradeoff for suffering over pain?
Like with most other things worthwhile, there are no shortcuts. I’m on my third year of a near-daily Mindfulness Meditation and while I’m certainly no Tolle or Kabat Zinn, I’ve learned to not only embrace the pain but use it to continue to grow. - Chappell
Chappell - I love this (and it also inspired me to meditate this morning after not practicing it for the past few months.)
The idea of pain vs. suffering was something that came up in the research for the post, and is something I'll be exploring more, as it does seem like a cornerstone of life. The term "all the usual tricks" rings true here for pain avoidance for sure. Pain doesn't seem to be a choice in life, but if suffering can be couched as one, maybe we can lessen the latter if we can't necessarily do much about the former.