PAIN - A gift or a curse? ....................... Lady Nyx

If you put your hand on the burning coil of the stove what happens? Instantly you feel pain and just as quickly, you remove your hand from the burning coil because you can sense the pain and because you are aware of the danger and damage that it is causing. If your hand is burned you quickly remedy it by addressing the injury and attempting to rectify and heal it.

What would happen if you could feel no pain? You would not know that your hand was burning and perhaps you would not quickly remove your hand from the burning coil, further compounding the injury to your hand from a simple first degree burn to a second or third degree burn.

We often wish away our pain and wish that it would simply not exist and yet there is actually a gift in being able to feel pain (both physical and emotional).

Without pain we would have an inability to sense harm or danger. Pain is a warning sign that something is going on that should not be ignored. Without pain, one is unable to know when something is causing damage to themself....whether it be physically, emotionally, or pyschologically. Without pain a small situation can grow into a larger situation.

Without emotional pain we would be unable to feel compassion or empathy for others. Without pain we would become aloof with no emotional objectivity or subjectivity. We could even become almost psychopathic with an inability to express concern for our fellow human beings or remorse for wrong doings we may inflict upon others. We would also be unable to know when damage is being done to our own emotional or spiritual selves.

Pain can be a motivating factor in causing us to make changes in our lives and even to assist others in pain because we understand and can relate to their feelings. Pain, as in the loss of a loved one, also tells us that we are able to love and care about others and can motivate us to appreciate those that we do love and never take them for granted, but rather savor those close ties that we have.

We can mask or deaden our pain in many ways through such methods as alcohol, drugs (recreational or prescription), becoming workaholics, or putting ourselves into a state of denial and becoming hardened or cynical to the pain of others and ourselves.

I see pain as a gift that we have been given to keep us alert to harm, danger, and negativity....and to alert us of the need to take action in alleviating pain in ourselves and others that we see and understand.

We can use pain to motivate us in a positive direction to take positive actions to alleviate the pain and heal the wounds....or we can wallow in the pain and become so enveloped in it until we become so focused upon it that it is all that we see and all that we relate to, refusing to advance past it. We can even get to the point where pain is the only emotion we understand and the only emotion we believe we can relate to. Our reality of ourselves can be one of a person in pain and we may even come to a point where it is our “comfort zone” or our identity of ourself to be constantly pained.

The question is, since we have been gifted to “feel”, what do we do with that gift? Do we use it to grow and learn? Do we use it as a warning sign that action needs to be taken? Or....do we despise the pain and give into a sense of negativity, self pity, and a feeling of hopelessness?

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that there is a time for grieving or sadness and a time for gathering understanding of the pain, its causes, its effects, and then ultimately its remedies.

I for one am thankful to at least be able to feel pain. What I do as a result of it....is my choice and my decision afterwards.

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