Pain and love — the whole of life, in short — Italo Svevo

Pain is a highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by an illness or injury or hurt to the body. Equally, it is a mental or emotional experience of distress resulting in grief, despair, sadness, or heartache. Acute pain resolves quickly. Chronic pain generally lasts a long time. (Interestingly, the word pain comes from the Latin word, poena, meaning punishment or penalty.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. — Buddhist proverb

Suffering is a process where we experience pain, distress, or hardship that varies from mild to unbearable and can be short or long-term. We feel this in relation to attachment to someone or something but also in an inability to grasp that impermanence is the natural state of being and so these things cannot be possessed for eternity.

I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more. — C S Lewis

Habit is something we think or do almost involuntarily or without thinking. It is a pattern of behaving that we repeat, generally with great regularity. We acquire this way of thinking or behaving through practice or exposure to specific events. Habits can be changed but, can be difficult to give up or overcome unless we understand why we think and do what we do: and, practise thinking and doing something different; and practise enough times to transform our way of thinking or doing something.

When We Know

We can always have a go at diminishing the level of emotional pain in our lives when we have the knowledge and skills to take responsibility for ourselves. When we do this, we are empowered to learn as much as we can about what contributes to our own wellbeing, while at the same time taking into account the wellbeing of others. We are capable of making this happen through an understanding of how we make choices and decide upon the important things in our lives. Choosing to identify, own, and express our feelings, as well as learning what needs are important to the significant others in our lives as well as ourselves (and how to go about fulfilling our own needs) is crucial to our wellbeing. Likewise, in determining and owning our values and principles for living, along with choosing to make life-serving judgements as opposed to moralistic judgements. Crucial to our wellbeing, is our parent's or carer’s nurturing love blended with the ability to give us competent direction, enabling us to live with authenticity. Such an environment creates a strong foundation upon which a child can grow into a self-actualised adult. Sometimes, however, to recognise the benefits of a nurturing environment, it requires a great deal of suffering and pain. Pain is the window through which we can see what happens as a result of the failings of either our parents or ourselves. Taking on the challenge of that pain is when we learn what to do about it. As it is with a house of love, a house of pain indubitably shapes who we become.

Time heals all wounds, unless you pick at them.  — Shaun Alexander

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining

The beautiful thing about emotional pain is that it lets you know you are alive; it goes down deep into your heart and scours the very depths of your emotions, digging out all those hidden feelings. And when those feelings surface and we come up to breathe again, we are gradually able to better appreciate the possibilities of life when we learn how to let go of the pain. Likewise, if you can hold onto something painful and accept it by letting it sit inside you like the grit in an oyster shell, it eventually grows into a magnificent pearl to be plucked and admired. Sometimes that’s the price we have to pay for the ability to become intimate with pleasure. It can feel very liberating.

And if you can’t find your smile,
I have one you can borrow. — Ernest Hemingway in his poem, The thing about pain

The philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, was of the opinion that our suffering has the advantage of producing positive gains for us and therefore, is actually something we should revere and embrace whole-heartedly. Pain is one of the coins of our emotional economy. Along with pleasure, it gives us the currency to construct our morals: in the sense of balancing our need for pleasure without significantly reducing the pleasure of others. These morals then form the basis of our personal ethics that give us the power to invest in and realise the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people — should we choose to do so.

Pain nourishes courage. You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you. — Mary Tyler Moore.

We can always have a go at improving our lives when we have the knowledge and skills to take responsibility for ourselves.

As it is with a house of love, a house of pain undoubtedly shapes who we become.