Rid yourself of Physical and Emotional Pain

If you are or have been in pain emotionally or physically, you know it is unpleasant. Pain is one of the last things any of us wants and would do almost anything to avoid it. The reason is pain is scary; it reminds us of our lack of invincibility and inevitable death. Unfortunately, until now, unless you have already figured it out. There has been no way for one to avoid pain in their life, which is why you are reading this article now.

A definition of pain, as stated in the International Association for the Study of Pain, is as followed “An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage.” (IASP ,2007). With this definition, it is stated actual or potential tissue damage. All too often, our alarms go off when there is no real danger. It is all caused by a lack of accurate perception. The job of the human mind is to seek risk. Therefore, our brain is constantly scanning the world for something to go wrong, creating constant fear, anxiety, and stress. Stress and perception of the world not being abundant in love and support is the root of most pain.

The key contributor to pain, mental disorders, and metabolic problems in the body is stress. When a system gets overloaded, it breaks down. Suppose we look at a Venn diagram with stress in one circle and one circle biological predispositions. Biological predispositions are our weak genetic points in mind and body. The overlap is where the breakdown happens. When stress levels are high, the correlation of biological predispositions increases, and low and behold, a breakdown occurs. Have you ever heard the saying, “You’re only as strong as your weakest link?” By Thomas Reid.

What contributes to stress?

The key to keeping stress down is controlling what we can in our life. What we can control is ourselves. All of the outside variables are uncontrollable. Most people try to control the outside world, thinking it will make them at peace on the inside. It is an impossible task. We only have control over one individual nothing in the environment is entirely controllable.

Stress that we can control comes from faulty perceptions, outside influences such as toxins in the environment and on our body, overdoing physically, underdoing physically, and from what we eat.

Let’s start with how to keep stress levels down with physical activity. It’s best to use your body within its limits for what you need to do in a given day. Going to the gym and lifting excessive amounts of weight is overloading the system and causing extra stress on the body. Have you ever noticed that a very active person needs extra care to decrease the strain they put on their bodies to perform? They need additional supplements, strengthening to make sure the body doesn’t break down in its weak points, massage, stretching, etc. In essence, this is a lot of maintenance to perform an exercise regime. Not to mention the other forms of stress in their life they still need to manage.

Sitting in a chair all day also causes stress in the body. It can cause pressure ulcers as well as decreased circulation. There is a delicate balance that needs to be found. We can’t sit around all day, and we can’t over-exercise; every individual is different. A rule of thumb is getting out of the house once a day if you can, perform daily duties in the home, prepare meals, go to the store, shower and complete the home's cleaning. Sometimes with age or injury, it is impossible to perform all these tasks, and it is understandable if you are unable to. Focus on what you can do and try to build on it.

The next factor is nutrition. If your body has to protect you from what you are eating, you stress the very foundation that is supposed to nourish it. Food is meant to be fuel for the body and help you to perform what you want to do in your life. It does not have to taste good. However, it is pleasant when it does. Nutrition was never meant to give us a sense of pleasure. Try to reframe your mind to eat for fueling the body and giving it the best nutrients you can to flourish. Think of the love and appreciation you have for your body when it comes to eating. When we eat something that tastes good and is not suitable for us, it is a temporary pleasure 10-15 minutes typically. Then our body has to fight off food that is not nutritious.

When we eat processed food and sugar, we put unnatural chemicals in our body, and our body has to fight them off. Therefore, causing stress and breakdown in the body. Without going too much into nutrition. You want the base of your diet to be from natural sources; fruits and vegetables, followed by legumes, natural carbohydrate sources (rice, oats, potato, quinoa), and meat. All the others are processed somehow to make it edible—the less altered your food, the better.

The next factor we have control of is the toxins in our environment. We can only live in a clean environment by keeping a clean home and living more remotely, therefore fewer city toxins. The products we use in our homes and on our bodies play a role. Our skin absorbs what we put on it. It is vital to reduce our use of sulfates, phosphates, and mineral oil in the products we use. These are harmful to our bodies and cause breakdown. Also, chemical products to clean the home can be toxic. As much as possible, try to use pure products. I know at times natural doesn’t work, and we have to bring out something more powerful. The key is limiting use.

The last factor and the most contributing factor to stress is the mind and it's perceptions. An undeniable fact is pain is subjective. Two people who have the same surgery would have very different experiences. For example, one might have intense pain and the other almost none. What is the difference here? It is the perception of the pain. One person with a sound mind will think this will end soon, or it’s a bit of pain. It’s not going to stop me. While another person panics and feels the pain will last forever, or how their life is so awful with this new condition. With this mind frame, it becomes a negative spiral downward and causes more pain physically and emotionally. The second person is the type that lets adversity take them down. Their mind creates precisely the situation they are in. The first person has a very different perspective and flourishes even with something in their way due to their belief in impermanence and self-belief.

Let’s look at how pain is perceived in the body. Pain receptors in the body send signals to the brain that say I’m hurting the part of the brain coordinated with where the pain is coming from. The brain interprets this pain. If you didn’t have signals going to the brain, you would never know you had any pain. What exhibits the interpretation is the stress level in the body controlled mainly through thoughts. Remember, the greater the stress in one’s life, the more biological predispositions come out.

Emotional pain is also subjective. One can suffer a breakup and feel destroyed and never get their life together, while another faces adversity and gets up stronger and wiser than before.

Emotional pain works similarly to physical pain. Emotional pain comes from signals of interpretation and lights up pain centers in the brain. The less stress in the body, the less reactionary we are.

This being said doesn’t mean you don’t have emotional/physical pain or should not address it with medical advice. There are many times when pain tells us something is severe, as taking your hand off the stove to avoid losing your hand. Always get medical advice if you have had persistent pain or abnormal behavior. If a physician has cleared you, then this article is for you.

As stated earlier, our mind scans for danger both physically and mentally. Psychological stress stems from fear. The human mind is afraid to die, so anything it senses as risk becomes catastrophic and causes eminence stress. The key is to analyze the fear and if it is indeed a valid danger. Realistically, most of our human life, we are not in any danger, although our mind has tried to tell us otherwise many times. I am sure you can recall a time.

The key is to stop striving for outside circumstances to alleviate your fears and anxiety in life. The more you can be centered in a world that is abundant and supportive; you can relax. It takes being comfortable with yourself and others as a reflection of you. This becomes a daily practice.

The best way to decrease our stress and check-in with ourselves is to sit in silence. At first, this is the hardest thing to do. There are no distractions, and your brain is going from one thought to the other. Then your body wants to move. The silence is unbearable, or there is a noise that is bugging you. Out of this silence comes the truth. The key is hanging in there and letting this all subside. Remember, all the circumstances outside of ourselves are uncontrollable. What we can control is our mind and body, a.k.a. our reactions.

We are safe. There is nothing to fear, and our body and mind can rest. We are in the present. Bringing us to the truth of this life. There is no moment, but now. It is healing, and you will be able to rid yourself of any pain. Emotional or physical. This does not mean at the beginning; it ends completely. Like any program, you must be consistent. At times you may cry, or your pain may feel more intense. Then it passes. All in life is transient, and when you can gather yourself enough not to attach to it. It will pass in time. You are not in danger. Your body is just telling you to go and sit in silence. The key to the resilience of mind and body is knowing your body and mind needs rest to process and regenerate. When you neglect it and live in stress from trying to strive for something outside yourself, it will let you know it needs silence and rest. If not from a mind bouncing around, then from a breakdown when you let it go for too long. Your body will require rest through pain. It is remarkable how we are designed. If we don’t listen, the body gets what it needs, whether we like it or not. The key is to learn to listen to its signs.

The best way to start sitting in silence is to perform 5 minutes in the morning and night. Then add time daily. Typically, 1 hour total in a day is sufficient to being more aware and giving your mind and body rest. It sounds like a lot, and I know not everyone can dedicate this amount of time. I promise you your day will flow smoother, and you will waste less time due to having a clearer mind and being more productive in this state. Every minute you dedicate to sitting in silence will pay off in productivity and to your health. The key is to do what you can, be consistent, don’t judge, and know it is a process. Once you get started, you will feel the calmness and want more of it in your life. Pain isn’t bad, only a wake-up call to a better life.