My father used to say, “some lessons in life need to be learned more than once.” It was his gentle way of saying it is ok to make the same mistake over and over, even if you think you “should know better.” I have always found the phrase deeply comforting. When it comes to life lessons, my body has been my greatest and my toughest teacher. For better or worse, I have a body that reacts to physical, emotional, environmental, and energetic stressors with physical pain. It began more than 30 years ago, when I was in my 20s, and it has resisted countless treatments and interventions. The pain may be in my back, shoulders, neck, joints – it tends to move around and shift its type and intensity – but to some degree it is always there. And though I have spent a decade coaching people to accept, rather than fight, illness and pain, it seems I still need to learn this lesson over and over again myself.
I don’t want it to be this way. I don’t want to have that kind of body. I want to be more resilient, more physically capable, stronger. I want to be able to sit for hours, walk miles, run, hike, work out, carry stuff, clean my house, or play tennis - for as long as I want whenever I want, without a painful protest from my body. I want to do more. And I can’t.
In protest or in denial, I still sometimes ignore the whispers – fatigue, irritability, or physical pain. Then the whispers get louder and louder until I finally can’t ignore them any longer and I have no choice but to stop, rest, take care. Then, in time, I get busier, take on something new and I think to myself, “maybe it won’t happen this time. Maybe I am healed.” When it happens again - the symptoms return - I go through all the stages of grief again, starting with denial. When I finally see it for what it is (my body being my body) I feel loss and defeat. And then I feel foolish for letting it happen. And then I feel foolish for blaming myself for it. And then I just feel foolish for feeling foolish. Shouldn’t I know better by now?
See how this can be crazy-making? And yet it is what the human mind does with pain, illness, limitation.
Here is what I know to be true: when I fight reality, reality always wins (I hear this on my head to the tune of “TheAuthority Song” by John Mellencamp). What we resist persists. When I deny or push my limits (physical, emotional, or energetic) I hurt. When I accept my limits, respect and enforce my boundaries, accommodate and care for my body rather than push it, it relaxes. It exhales. It lets go. It can trust that it is safe. The suffering eases. Yes, I might then have to allow and sit with grief. No one wants to do that. But it’s the only way. That is compassion. Compassion heals.
Lately I’ve been having a flare – back pain, fatigue, low mood. The trap I fall into – and that I work with so many of my clients on – is chasing the “why.” What did I do? Why is this happening? Why was I fine a month ago and now I feel like crap again? But I know that “why” is the wrong question. We cannot know why.
Our human body-mind-spirits are so intricately complex that it is audacious to believe we can ever know why we feel some kind of way at any point in time.
The correct question is not “why” but “what?” What do I need? What is here now? What is my body trying to tell me? What will bring me some comfort, some ease? What is true in this moment?
The lesson is always the same: stop struggling with the reality of your body and your life. Stop trying to figure out and control everything. Exhale. Accept. Listen deeply. Accept again. Grieve if you need to. But stop trying to be the person you wish you were and start caring for the person you are.
I’m reminded of the Buddhist teaching on the difference between pain and suffering. Pain (physical or emotional - the word pain encompasses both without distinction) is inevitable. Being born and living in a human body-mind means there will be pain. Pain happens. It is inevitable and beyond our control.
What is pain, at its essence? It is an unpleasant sensation in the body, an unpleasant state of mind. It is dis-comfort. That’s all.
Suffering is what we add on with our thoughts about pain. Pain triggers fear - that’s its biological purpose, after all. And fear sends the human mind into thinking, worrying, investigating, problem-solving. It creates stress. Which, in turn, exacerbates the felt sensation of pain.
Pain, and the fear that accompanies it, send the mind on a quest for meaning. Why is this happening? What did I do wrong? What does it mean? These thoughts, then, are the source of suffering - the compounder of pain.
That suffering, for me, has come in the form of stories about my body, my health, and pain. The stories have changed over time but they always reflect some degree of self-blame. It’s my fault, somehow, that I’m “still dealing with this” after all this time and all this effort. Thirty-four years. Four back surgeries. Countless hours of PT, exercise, rest, massage, acupuncture, meditation, yoga, energy work. Years (and dollars!) spent trying dietary changes, detoxes, supplements. More years of somatic therapy, trauma therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, journaling, researching, teaching, writing, learning. Thirty four years. And all that money I’ve spent! How can it be that it is still here? What does it mean that it is still here?
How can it mean anything other than I’m not good enough to fix it?
But that is not true. It’s an understandable cognitive distortion but it’s not true. I know it’s not true for anyone else - I’d never in a million years believe that someone other than me is responsible for their chronic pain or illness. And yet it is a deeply persistent core belief. I’ve seen it occupy not only my own mind but the minds of so many others with chronic pain and illness who I’ve worked with, sat with, listened too. When nothing and no one can help - when it can’t be fixed - we end up concluding it must be our fault.
That is where the suffering comes from - the suffering on top of the pain - the part that is actually OPTIONAL. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Once I *see* that my thinking is distorted - that the self-blame and shame are stories and not the truth - I can let them go. Yes, I keep having to do this over and over and over and over again. And in my work with others, I find myself reminding them over and over and over again. Such is the nature of persistent core beliefs. They are formed over a lifetime and they may take another lifetime to shift. But they can shift. A little at a time I can ease my own suffering even as I accept that I am powerless over the pain.
It may seem paradoxical, but when I accept that I am powerless over the pain - at least to some degree - it eases. My body softens, the struggling lessens, the resistance eases, the contractions let go. If I can do something to help myself, I trust that I will do it. And when there is nothing I can do, I must surrender and take compassionate, loving care of this body, exactly how it is today, now, here.
That’s the lesson of pain vs. suffering, of radical acceptance, of radical self-compassion. Stop fighting what is. What we resist persists.
And stop making up stories to explain the unexplainable - because the stories I make up will always cause suffering. Pain with no story is “just” pain. Let that be all. It’s hard enough. Take care, choose ease, find comfort. That’s all.