Chapter 12
Pain Is Inevitable; Suffering Is Optional
The
Motivating Message of Discomfort
Pain—like a warning light coming on in a car—is a message that something requires attention. We tend to have two approaches to dealing with pain. One is to "kill the messenger" by getting rid of the pain as quickly as possible--we remove the warning light rather than looking for the problem that set it off. Or we "enthrone the messenger," focusing on and amplifying our pain in suffering. We install a big bank of warning lights, monitor them constantly, and issue reports on their status rather than changing the situation that triggers the signal.
The mind-body approach emphasizes the importance of responding to pain as a signal to make changes in your life and your thinking. Escalation of physical difficulties can arise from "removing the warning light" when treating pain as the problem rather than the message. Insisting on medical solutions rather than looking inward for the source of pain allows us to avoid confronting the personal challenges than can release us from our physical problems. This may also be related to the significant increase in chronic illness, which is essentially a warning light that can no longer be turned off.
Just as there are uses for illness, there are also uses for suffering. The belief that the label "psychosomatic" means "you’re faking" often leads to turning up the volume on suffering in an effort to prove your health problems are "real." Suffering can justify behavior that disrupts the lives of others. Struggling with disease can provide a sense of drama and significance in a life that otherwise lacks interest or meaning. Suffering can allow us to quit a job with disability pay, to collect government disability checks, or to get a financial settlement in a court case. It can lead to feeling included, listened to, and loved in a support group.
In order to release suffering from your life, you may need to become aware of how you use it to manipulate situations and people, avoid facing your fears, give meaning to your life, and obtain very real benefits. At the root of such choices are beliefs about your power—or lack of power—to affect life and get what you want by more direct means. Giving up the habit of suffering requires the courage to confront your unconstructive beliefs about yourself, as well as a commitment to find meaning, purpose, and power in more constructive ways.