Life has conspired in recent years to give me an opportunity to experience some degree of chronic pain – something I haven’t had to contend with many times in my life.  In hypnosis, there are two scales for rating the severity of pain.  Both are 0 – 10.  One scale measures the actual intensity of the pain itself and the other measures how much the pain bothers someone.  Because I work with these scales with clients all the time, I’ve been curious about the direct experience of exploring how much something bothers me when it just won’t go away, when it’s not just temporary, as is a trip to the dentist or a medical procedure that’s over when it’s over.  

What many of you know who have faced chronic physical pain is that it’s possible to be in a good bit of discomfort and not to be overly bothered by it – to find it immensely bothersome initially and then to adapt in some way so that the presence of the pain doesn’t interfere as much as it did in the beginning.  This physical experience got me to thinking about emotional pain, as well – how we often face the challenge of learning to live with emotional losses and psychological changes that may be very painful to encounter. 

Pain of any kind is a psychological, as well as physical or emotional, experience in that we have a relationship with the pain.  Within that relationship, we respond according to how we feel about the pain itself.  If we are deeply bothered, we struggle with the pain and want it to go away.  We may have thoughts like, “This shouldn’t be happening to me,” “I can’t bear it,” “This has to change now,” when these outcomes aren’t immediately, or perhaps ever, possible.  The struggle adds another layer of pain – this time psychological – as we fight with what is.

All of this got me to thinking, again, about the practice of softening – about how important it is to be able to let pain be what it is and move through as it comes and goes in intensity.  This is true about emotional as well as physical pain – both usually come in waves with quiet moments from time to time.   When we learn to soften into the intense moments in the waves of feeling, we lessen our suffering.  We remember that we’re made up mostly of space and we let the discomfort arise, move through all that spaciousness, and move on.  Our relationship to the pain changes and we cease to struggle with its presence.  Even though this may not be possible in every moment, we can engage this practice to support ease when we can.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to explore your relationship with pain and discomfort – physical and emotional – and to become aware of where you struggle with the “what is” of your experience.  Notice what happens when you allow yourself to soften into the discomfort, and also experiment with what happens when you tighten around it, struggle with it, and seek to make it go away.  Now, as always with these kinds of “what is” experiments, this doesn’t mean not to take the steps that *are* available to generate increased comfort and move away from pain.  This experiment has to do with the opportunity to soften into the “what is” of discomfort when the option to change it or move away from it isn’t immediately available.

As with every experiment, please have curiosity as your constant companion, and compassion as your fundamental stance.  My goal here is to offer you some practice in a powerfully useful tool we’ve explored before, a tool that enhances your journey of living with awareness.  The good news is that there are never “right’ answers on this journey.  There’s just more awareness – and awareness offers choice, which is  the constant gift and opportunity along the way.