"Pain"...In better perspective..

Pain is such a relative term….how much pain do you feel? When you fall down and graze your knee? When a friend lets you down? When you encounter failure? When you lose a loved one? Can you measure the amount of pain and create standards of measurement?? Maybe not…if I’m not wrong the amount of pain one feels has nothing to do with the external stimuli…but to do with internal factors…two people may feel very different degrees of pain in the same situation.

1) How much pain you feel right now?

If you are grieving over the death of a loved one or the loss of a job…you will probably feel nothing from a small rejection. I remember once…I was going through some trauma and feeling mighty dejected. During this time (pardon me for sharing the gory details…can’t think of any other example right now)..i visited the parlor to wax my legs. Usually this is a very painful experience with me trying hard not to yank my legs away and run…but that day..I remember thinking…what’s such a big deal..When I can go through so much trauma…this physical pain is nothing…and strangely…I felt no pain the whole time…

Ask any woman who has given birth to a baby…her perspective to pain changes forever..any physical pain post this experience feels like little ant bites…he he..

2) How much pain you have experienced in the past.

Pain builds immunity. The more pain one faces…the more immunity and resistance one develops to it. A person who has seen many up’s and down’s in life may not react and be pained by small setback’s and is generally more competent in handling and channelizing the pain. I have seen some people who cannot handle small problems and behave as though the world has come to an end and this is probably because they have been protected from getting hurt in the past.

3) Where is your focus?

The more you focus on a pain the more it will hurt. Brooding over a painful incidence or person magnifies and intensifies how you feel about it. Some people tend to move on quickly and distract themselves to other positive aspects of their life and this way they slowly disassociate from the pain.Also, if you think of the long term benefits of the negative incident, it helps to get over with it quickly. For example…losing one’s job or breaking up with a partner can be looked in a different way… Maybe it happened for the better. Maybe god/destiny has something better in store. Maybe things could have been a lot worse….

4) Are you getting better perspective?

There are times when I have shared some of my problems with good friends and they have been able to look at the situation in a different angle making me wonder if I’m making a big deal of an issue or if I’m over-reacting. Sharing your problems with others helps develop better perspective to any situation, thus reducing the pain you feel.

Another way to get a better perspective is by looking at the life of others. Instead of succumbing to the “Why me” Syndrome…if we look at what problems others are facing and compare our lives with theirs, we may realize that everyone faces problems and that I’m not the only one who has problems. This realization also helps reduce the intensity of pain one feels.

There are so many ways to deal with any kind of Pain, we always have a choice..no matter how intense the pain…

Only point to remember is that any kind of pain is not imposed on us, from the outside…

it’s about how much pain we choose to take…and keep…..!!

(Wife: You always carry my photo in your handbag to the office. Why?
Darling: When there is a problem, no matter how impossible, I look at your picture and the problem disappears.

Wife: You see, how miraculous and powerful I am for you?
Darling: Yes, I see your picture and say to myself, “What other problem Can there be greater than this one?)

About these ads