“There will always be suffering. But we must not suffer over the suffering” – Alan Watts
It’s certain that throughout my life I have experienced pain. My own and others, both psychological and physiological. Physiological pain is somewhat simple. There’s a stress the body isn’t adapting to or a sudden onset of pain has occurred through trauma.
I’m now going to take you for a deeper look into psychological pain and provide you with some insight on how I utilises this as a fuel source for positive change.
Using Pain for Positive Change.
Pain has its place, but We must not continually suffer over the suffering
Pain and discomfort is a driving force behind positive change. I experience the necessity and value of pain every day. But I also see the common mistake of avoiding action and therefore living in Neurotic pain.
The person who changed jobs to chase their dream career didn’t do so due to their overflow of enjoyment in their prior role. Nor does the person who loses 30kg and finally feels like themselves. Point being, if not for suffering many people wouldn’t seek out a life of more?
As per usual it’s simple, but not easy. Utilise your pain as fuel for change. Yet we see people turn resentful and Numb. People staying in roles they despise, Blaming their circumstances or even worse numbing themselves to their reality.
So what separates those who use this pain for positive change and those who remain in Neurotic pain?
It’s unclear
This list could go on and people will become and remain this way for many reasons. Though what they all have in common is pain and it has the capacity to be one of the most potent fuels for positive change.
Turn your pain into progress
The key to progressing through pain is to have the ability to move forward. How I do this is through 3 steps: identify, detach then utilise. I personally use this 3 step rule successfully with clients and I would like to share it with you today in hope to help you or someone you may know.
- Identify
- Detach
- Utilise.
Identify – The purpose of this is to find the underlying source of pain.Is it existential or neurotic? If neurotic You may need some carefully structured sentences to help get yourself to the root cause.
I use the 5 whys principle
Detach – This can prove to be difficult when experiencing neurotic pain. Though once you can detach from this root cause and look at it from an almost emotionless perspective you will gain control. With Neurotic pain, control is the key!
Whilst I’m not promoting you to be an emotionless zombie, It can be very beneficial to leave them aside at times to allow for clarity. Remember at times our perception of reality is far from what reality is.
I personally use deep breathing/Cold water or my favorite Hard physical exercise to create a somewhat emotionless state that allows me to revisit problems productively with clarity. The more I live the more I feel Clarity comes from eliminating my emotions. NOT enhancing them. These 3 tools help me do just that.
Utilise – Knowing what I don’t want has given me far more value in my life than knowing what I do want. I utilise this every day and it’s created so much value in my life and those I work with. All of us experience pain but not all of us use it productively.
I hope this Short blog reminds you that you can use this uncomfortable feeling to grow great things in your life.