Pain is normal

'Pain is a question of mind over matter--I don't mind and you don't matter!'

Neat sign in a dentist's waiting room

Not sure it did much for his patients peace of mind though!

Truly though pain is a natural part of life

Yes we will all experience plenty of pain in our lives

Physical pain

Mental pain

Emotional pain

And what can you do about this?

Nothing because pain will come and go in your life

It will come when it does and you will have to adjust and accept it

Smart people question what they can do to reduce the amount of pain once it arrives

Physical pain is reducible by increasing your pain threshold

Next time you have physical pain learn about it go right into it

Feel every detail of it, every nuance

As you do this so the pain changes, and if you can stay with it you can learn to accept it better

Very advanced humans know how to stay in pain and then absorb it into their reality in a way that allows them to continue functioning satisfactorily and then later the pain is gone absorbed completely

Physical pain can be devastating so for sure painkillers have their place as do morphine and other drugs.

Take the minimum necessary

Mental pain is reduced or eliminated by having a higher hierarchy of values, which allows you to become the observer of the mental pain without directly being affected

This is not easy and takes considerable practice

Denying the situation merely pushes it back and sooner or later it will come back although many choose to deny this reality

Mental pain can lead to breakdown so finding good help is important

Emotional pain is tough because it will not leave you alone

Emotional pain is an attack on one of our most sensitive areas and cannot be brushed away

Keeping busy is one approach

Another is to find activities which require extreme focus because while doing these actions we cannot be worrying about our emotional pain and therefore get some rest from it

Obviously over time the emotional pain changes so being busy with new actions helps to pass the time and dull the hurt

Pain is most certainly a teacher although many try to avoid it

Some turn to pills

Not so clever as they bring their own problems

Often they have side effects

They can and do often create dependencies

They cost money often lots of it

They solve nothing

Other people turn to smoking and or drugs and or alcohol

Temporary relief then the pain returns as you have not addressed the true causes

Face up to it many of man's pleasures are designed to take away or dull pain

Face up to it that they also resolve nothing

They leave you where you were before or usually worse off

So here's another approach

Accept that pain is OK

That pain is a normal reasonable part of life

Pain can teach us things, many things about ourselves and others so look at pain as a teacher

even as a friend

Without pain we would often be unaware of dangers

The pain from that cut alerts you to take action

That pain in your stomach warns you not to eat so much or pay attention to what you are doing

So yes pain can be a friend

Accepting pain helps us to handle it in a less defensive or angry way, which for sure is more useful than resenting it

Pain is a natural and if used properly is a strong teacher

Think about it humanity learns more through pain than most other things

Pity really because love is also a teacher and could help us much more if only we showed more of it to each other