addition to creating conditions for pleasure, pain helps us survive—which is, in fact, a prerequisite for feeling good. In his book The Gift of Pain, Paul Brand explores how the experience of pain helps us understand what we need to do to preserve our bodies. He references a girl who was born with congenital indifference to pain, meaning she couldn't experience any of the physical sensations we'd associate with hurting. At eighteen months old, she chewed at her fingers beyond the point of bleeding, completely oblivious to the fact that her wounded digits represented a massive threat to her well-being. Obviously adults know better than to gnaw on our own flesh, but without pain we wouldn't have information we need to preserve ourselves. This doesn't apply just to physical pain; emotional pain also helps us make smart choices for our survival.
I've always had a fascination with the idea of schadenfreude—deriving pleasure through seeing someone else in pain—because some of my most painful memories involve me crying while someone else appeared to enjoy it. A recent study by University of Chicago psychology professor Jean Decety revealed that bullies experience increased blood flow in the reward center of the brain when they see people suffering. Children who didn't display similarly aggressive behavior felt empathy for the people hurting.
Considering that biology may have influenced the cruelty I experienced as a kid—and knowing that my tormenters may have missed out on an important cue to feel for other people and, in doing so, intimately relate to them—I can feel a new and healthy gratitude for my ability to hurt. The capacity to feel for other people is in itself a source of pleasure. Because I hurt so deeply, I have always felt other people's pain almost within my own flesh and blood. I may not always have opened myself up to relationships, but I've always been a nurturer within the ones I've accepted. For that deeply satisfying ability to recognize pain and help heal it, I am eternally grateful.
The pleasure that can come after pain isn't always a reciprocal or fair trade-off, but if we have to experience things that are difficult in life, we might as well identify something good in the aftermath. When I met that girl in Times Square, I knew without a doubt she would never have chosen her fate. There was nothing desirable about losing the people she loved and knowing they died so tragically. It crossed my mind, though, that she likely appreciated people in a whole new way after experiencing firsthand just how fragile life is. I imagined that in her next relationship, whenever things got difficult, as they inevitably do when two people come together, she'd close her eyes and remember to value every moment because the moments eventually run out. Knowing the pain of loss likely gave her relationships a whole new sense of meaning.
At the end of his life, French impressionist painter Auguste Renoir continued making art, despite the near-paralyzing arthritis that made every stroke torture. In response to the question of why he carried on, Renoir said, “Pain passes but beauty remains.” I can't help but wonder if he didn't merely push through the pain but somehow appreciated that it endowed his last pieces with a whole new sense of meaning. Pain has a way of doing that when we realize what we get through the experience of enduring it.
LET PAIN REMIND YOU OF WHAT YOU ENJOY AND APPRECIATE.
If you're hurting and it seems like you'll never feel joy again:
Identify what this pain reminds you to appreciate. If you're hurting because you lost someone, this pain reminds you to enjoy every moment with the people you love because life is fragile. If you're hurting because of shame or regret, this pain reminds you to live with honor, authenticity, and integrity to create feelings of self-respect and pride.
Make a proactive decision to enjoy those things at least a little today. Don't worry about completely releasing your pain forever—that's a huge goal to demand of yourself. Instead, focus on doing something for just a short while that will create the emotions you want to feel. Call an old friend and get together for a spontaneous adventure instead of dwelling on the adventure that never happened. Do something that makes you feel proud and passionate instead of feeling ashamed of the decision that didn't pan out.
Schedule blocks of healing. When we're hurting, it's easy to isolate ourselves until we feel better or more in control. But I've noticed that simple pleasures—like a massage or a hug—can feel so much more gratifying when I am deeply in need of release or connection. So schedule it in, even if you think you may get emotional. According to William Frey II, a biochemist who researches tears at Ramsey Medical Center, crying releases toxins and stress hormones—meaning, it often feels good to cry.
DESIRES AND ATTACHMENT CAUSE PAIN
Because there is desire, there is suffering. ∼@jazzmann91
Suffering happens when people become attached to material possessions and each other. Understanding loss and death will free us. ∼@lindsay1657
People identify with every thought they have. They don't see the world as it is. They just see their opinions about it. ∼@mullet3000
Because we're human and have intelligence, we can imagine having a better experience than the present and suffer over the difference. ∼@sarabronfman
The day people start lowering their expectations from work, life, and relationships, suffering will disappear. ∼@supriyaagarwal
There is little in life that's more stressful than clinging to something you want to last forever while knowing full well that nothing does. Only slightly more painful is identifying something you think you need and feeling powerless to get it. There's this dream I used to have over and over again. I'd want to get somewhere, but my body wouldn't move. I'd start running, but I would essentially be jogging in place, like Wile E. Coyote, legs still moving even after he'd been pushed off the cliff and was suspended in midair. No matter how much energy I expelled, I was immobile, but I always kept fighting, sweating, and screaming, hoping something or someone would save me from the pain of my paralysis.
That's how I lived my waking life, too. There was always something I visualized as the end-all-be-all in terms of happiness, and it was always something that evaded me—a relationship, a job, an adventure, and usually underneath it all, a feeling. What I desperately wanted was always something just out of reach—and then I got it, and my internal supervisor immediately assigned me another aching, endless want. There was no reward for achieving—only a new demand to cower before. I suspect a lot of us live this way: desperate to be in that place where everything appears to be better. Whether it's come and gone, or it lives in a dream, we all have an idea of the way things should be. We've all formed opinions and expectations of how things look when they work well—or how we feel when things are going well. And then we attach to those situations, places, people, and feelings, imagining everything would be perfect if we could get and keep them. The irony is that we don't only attach to things that appear to be positive. Sometimes familiarly bearable is far less scary than the unknown.
Back in my adolescent group-therapy-hopping days, I met an overeater who had formed a long-term intimate relationship with a razor. She weighed more than three hundred pounds, yet even on the hottest days she wore full-length shirts—and it had nothing to do with concealing her obviously large arms. One day the therapist let us know she'd be coming to the group wearing a short-sleeved shirt. I immediately felt appalled that a professional would feel the need to prepare us for seeing an arm far fleshier than our own. Malnourished though we were, I highly doubted any of us would have gasped at the sight of her exposed obese limbs.
What I learned when I stopped thinking and tuned in to the rest of her forewarning was that our group member had cut literally hundreds of crisscrossed gashes across every inch of exposed skin she could reach. Even after years of counseling, she remained attached to this dangerous habit for numbing her emotional pain.
Months
