Episode 78. Living with Pain

What in life deserves our time and attention and what things don't. I hope that as we consider that question along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones “Living with Pain.”

Pain isn't really our enemy. We think it is, but it's not. It's a process that too often we try to run away from when we should be embracing it. As humans, we know how to feel pain like no one else. Not only do we feel physical pain, but we're experts in carrying pain over from our experiences. Our intelligence relative to other species on earth is not just a blessing.

But in many ways, I think it's our curse. We don't forget things very easily and they stay with us forever.  Of course, we have our ways to avoid that pain or to at least keep it at bay. Maybe we just refuse to look at it and maybe we numb it with aversions or substances. Regardless. Those things push pain to the side for a while, but they don't eliminate it completely.

There's really only one way to defeat pain, and that is. By not defeating it at all. 'cause you can never win against pain to actually be done with it. You have to let it  consume you. Defeating pain is not an epic battle between you and some mythical dragon. It's the act of sacrificing yourself to it. It is to set aside the very concept that there's anything for you to fight with at all, and it's to be done with the idea that pain was ever your enemy.

It is so easy to run away from our pain or to smother it with distractions, but that just lets it sit in our bodies and fester. We have to feel the weight of how sad the situation is that caused it to mourn the loss of our naivete or innocence. We need to think on our pain and we need to swim in it, and only then will our bodies finally be able to let go of it.

Internal pain comes from choices we regret. Cruelty from others and sadness over loss. One thing that all of these have in common is that they're something to mourn. Fear is what happens when we prematurely allow ourselves to feel pain for those things before they even happen. Mourning is the process of allowing our body to move past the things that hurt us.

I don't know why we need to do this, but the hurts and pains of life are a cumulative thing. And they just compound more pain on top of pain unless we can allow it to pass through us. But of course, to let the pain of those hurts pass through us is the most intense pain of all we complain about. But, sometimes I wonder if we secretly like our pain.

Almost as if it has become a part of us and we've actually become afraid of what would happen to us if it was gone. A life unburdened by our pain is lived very differently than a life burdened with pain. That can be scary for some people because it means changing their habits, which can be excruciating, especially when many of our habits have become such a crutch.

That the very idea of being without them is petrifying. Think of the person that turns to getting high or a little drunk when the pain comes. Imagine how hard that would be to face your pain without any of the tools you know how to use. It's like jumping into the deep end without a life vest for the first time, or like walking near the edge of a drop off with nothing to hang onto.

Maybe this is the same reason we stay in bad situations. Sometimes they're painful, but they're familiar. The unknown is still the unknown, even if it is most likely better than what you may currently have. We let our fear exaggerate the toll of the pain we would experience from trying to change.

Sometimes we let our fear exaggerate the actual toll. Of the pain that we would end up experiencing from trying to make changes. But pain is worth escaping. Pain spreads into how we see the world and clouds the lens through which we see life. It changes how we  behave and where we want to go and the things we like to do.

Not to mention that same pain can destroy us physically. Sometimes people fall ill from carrying too much guilt, shame, and hatred. The price of pushing away thoughts that bring us pain is not worth the temporary reprieve we get from it. Choosing to accept the pain that haunts you might actually bring you greater relief than anything else you could ever experience. 

If there was ever a thing worth surrendering to. It is your pain. I think sometimes we think there's virtue in the attempt to remain indifferent to our pain, and I'd agree that there's certainly a time and a place for that. Sometimes we need to focus on the task at hand before we can allow ourselves to succumb to our pain, but it needs to be dealt with at some point when you do choose to finally succumb to your pain.

It will be a flood. It will be overwhelming. You will want to grasp for anything in sight that could spare you. I feel like drowning might be an appropriate comparison to what you might experience, but it will subside eventually. Letting the pain of years of trauma flow over us is often not a one-time event.

It may go on and on and on, but it will get a little better. Each time and over time, the pain of that  thing will come to visit a little less frequently. We don't have to understand why we're feeling it so much as we have to just let it come over us. As counterintuitive as it may sound, dwelling on what I've lost in my life and thinking about what my life would be deprived of in the future, brought me out of pain.

Thinking on those things, intensified the pain, and at times made it worse, but it found its way out of me that way. I had to feel it as acutely as possible to be done with it. The more I contemplated the worst of my fears and my pains from the past. The more the unknown slowly became the known, and I found my way to a place of peace.

I felt my way past pain by writing about it. I felt it by listening to music that only intensified it. I felt it in every way I could until it found its way through me and decided I had had enough. Yes, it hurts more than pushing it off to the side for a while. But if a temporary increase in intensity means I can live free of a persistent, dull pain that is determined to follow me my entire life, then it's worth it.

On the other side of pain sits a treasure chest filled with clarity, empathy, resilience, and a deeper sense of meaning. Working your way past the pain in your life offers not just relief, but lessons. It is never easy, but when your pain comes knocking  at the door. Let it in. Give it a hug and let it move past you so you can move on with your life.

This is Skipping Stones “Living with Pain.” You can find this podcast anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts. For more information about me, feel free to visit

skippingstonessr.com. And if you enjoyed the show, please like or subscribe. If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me at info@skippingstonessr.com, new episodes will be released weekly every Monday.