Pain Is Weakness Leaving the Body
Pain comes in many forms. There is the pain of a headache and there are many kinds of headaches that produce various degrees and quality of pain. There is organ pain when something is wrong inside and muscle pain when they are pushed beyond the norm either by exercise or emergency. Pain can be mild and a mere annoyance, or brutal and debilitating.Pain can be emotional and many say they'd much rather have physical pain than the kind of pain that spins the mind and weakens the body due to emotional upheaval. All emotional pain is the body's reaction to the mind. There literally are molecules of emotion released into the blood by the brain, that find their ways to our cells and lock on to produce the effects we know all too well when emotional pain strikes. It may be that kicked in the stomach feeling, dizziness, crying or shock, but it all has its roots in the chemistry produced by the mind when the mind has to deal with the way things are. It's why funerals are as they are and bad news sucks. It's why chronically bad thinking produces chronically bad health. We are both what we eat and what we think. Emotions can be checked by proper attention to the breathing which most never do properly. When we breath from high in the chest, we literally send the message to the brain we are stressed and anxious. In response,the brain sends the appropriate chemicals for fight or flight. To change that, we simply need to breathe from the tummy which literally sends the message to the brain that "all is well." The brain then says "fine then, here comes the feel good stuff." It's why Buddah's tummy is fat!
If you are like me at times, you worry too much about that which is beyond one's control or inevitable no matter what I wish or do not wish would be. Worry is a way we think to lessen painful realities that will come if you live long enough, or if you're lucky as one friend of mine puts it. Worry is what we do to prepare, as if you could, for that which we think will be painful for us. Worry is also one of the more useless endeavors humans tend to come up with to address reality. It ranks right up there with shame and guilt.
Perhaps there is another perspective about literal pain and that which is emotionally painful that would be helpful to keep in mind. Pain is also weakness leaving the body. Think of that. PAIN IS WEAKNESS LEAVING THE BODY.
Doing massage as I do can put parts of the body into pain. It shouldn't,but it does in reality at times. The pain tells me that part of my body is not up for the task, at that moment, of doing what I'm doing that way. However, as I keep doing it, the pain leaves and what was weak is now stronger and not painful. All physical workouts are designed to create pain so that weakness leaves the body and one is left stronger for all the hard work. Tissue is strengthened by being torn and left to heal.
It's painful when people we love or we ourselves become less than perfectly healthy. It's painful when loved ones die, either too soon or very late. It's painful when life changes, jobs are lost, careers change, relationships deteriorate or change. But all pain is still weakness leaving the body.
To not understand that death comes to everyone and to react to it as if life has thrown us, and us alone, a nasty curve, is weakness and needs to go. The pain of loss wakes us up to our emotional weaknesses and we either grow through or become bitter as some do. Most grow through and are stronger for the pain that comes into their lives. Without the pain, there could be no growth and no getting stronger. I suppose this is why we cling, at times, to "what does not kill me, makes me stronger." Very true. Sometimes you have to wonder what the outcome of pain will be because, well when it happens, it's painful! Life is a bit like walking. Walking is a controlled crash in the making that, with practice, we turn into graceful movement and progress.
Whether pain is literal and hurts the body, or emotional and hurts the mind and spirit, perhaps if we remind ourselves that "Pain is weakness leaving the body," we can see the bigger picture of what it might be here to teach us. It is universally true that in our weaknesses and pain, we are made stronger, if we allow it and don't allow self pity, anger and "why me" (why not?) to distract us from an opportunity to learn the lessons here at Earth School.
Dennis C. Diehl
