Accept the pain; Reduce the suffering
“Stick with the situation at hand, and ask: ‘Why is this so unbearable?’, ‘Why can’t I endure it?’ - You’ll be embarrassed to answer.”
Marcus Aurelius
One of the greatest Roman emperor’s, and a Stoic Philosopher. One of the key messages of the Stoic philosophy is “the obstacle is the way”.
WHAT
Next time you are suffering (physical pain or emotional pain) ask yourself: “why is this so unbearable?” or “why can’t I endure it?”.
Some examples from life:
Physical pain during an exercise (within safety protocols)
Stress over upcoming end-of-yer review at work
Stress of over life changes that come with having kids
Physical pain of a tight low back
WHY
It can help you get a grip, gain some perspective, and keep going by accepting the pain and reducing the suffering.
Yes, I wrote accepting pain and reducing suffering.
Because one thing I’m starting to learn, is that these two are not the same.
Pain is constructed by our brains as an alarm signal against potential danger (physical or otherwise).
Suffering is more like pain hijacking our entire conscious experience, drowning everything else.
In other words [1]:
Pain is a physical sensation or signal indicating an event within the body. Suffering is the interpretation of that event and involves thoughts, beliefs, or judgments,[2][3] and reflects the human experience of pain.
Not that I’m trying to over-simplify pain. Just to give you a taste of how complicated pain is - there are at least 4 major theories regarding the mechanics of pain [4], none of which are complete. But all of them agree that there is the sensation part (signal transmitted from sensing organs to the brain) and there is the conscious experience part (our brain’s interpretation of the signals). And that it’s the interpretation stage which is probably responsible for the physiological suffering we experience.
Pain, we probably can’t stop, at least not without medication or a lot of training.
But suffering… suffering can be stopped, if instead of resisting the pain, we accept it (which also takes training).
Or in the words of Sam Harris in his Waking Up app: “how long do the alarm bells need to keep ringing?”
HOW
To practice this skill (if you don’t use it you lose it) try exposing yourself to painful situations, with a timer. When you reach breaking points (yes, in plural, there will be many) use this self-talk to hold on more. There is a trick here though. If you try fighting the pain, you will lose by definition - because that is exactly suffering. So you need to try to accept the pain.
Still, work with your body and mind in a safe way. Maybe warmup a bit before your challenge. Maybe try it for very short periods, to make sure no actual damage is inflicted on you. Remember - we (I do anyways) want to practice accepting pain in order to reduce suffering in our life, not just mindlessly cause self-injury.
Some activities I like to use as “pain meditations”:
Sitting in a low squat for at least 5 minutes
Cold showers (doing that daily now)
Hands in a bowl of ice water (because I don’t have the facilities for a full-body ice plunge)
Sitting on my knees and heels (Japanese style)
Holding the plank position
Breathwork (see: WHM, Oxygen Advantage)
Sometimes it even helps to think to myself “this pain is part of my life now, this is it, it’s not going away”.
Then the pain (for example of holding an uncomfortable position like the low squat) becomes less overbearing, and suffering is reduced.
BOTTOM LINES
Pain and suffering are not the same. Accept the pain, reduce the suffering
When suffering, ask yourself “why is this so unbearable?” you might be surprised by the answer
Do “pain meditations” - practice accepting the pain in controlled painful situations
To walk the walk - I wrote this article while sitting in the low squat position (OK! only the first draft)
But I also mixed in knee-sitting, which is much more painful for me, and front-split sitting (for flexiblity)
Low Squat
Long forgotten mobility that I need to regain.
