Posted by seldomseen on October 24, 2008, at 13:10:40
In reply to Pain is part of life, but suffering is a choice???, posted by Kath on October 22, 2008, at 19:40:16
I definately agree with most of what has been said thus far. This is definately NOT about simply white knuckling your way through pain.
In my experience, chosing not to suffer is not as easy at it sounds. In fact, it has taken me years to reach the point where that choice is even an option for me.
I think our bodies are hard wired on every level to respond to pain. It gets our attention and sparks action. I've noticed that it really doesn't matter whether it's physical pain, or emotional pain, our bodies react similarly to both.
Pain, and the cause of that pain become all we can think about - and rightly so on the physical side of things. Imagine if you'd been grievously injured in a car wreck - the last thing you would want your body to do would be not care! "Oh yeah, i think I have a badly broken leg and a head injury, but oh well, just don't care!
That's just no going to happen.
But I do think we can tune down our natural reaction to emotional pain.
For me, the key to coping with emotional pain was first developing the ability to hold two completely opposing feelings at the same time and not trying to reconcile or act on either.
For instance, my father is a deeply disturbed violent individual and I love him. I hate him as well. Both emotions exist, both are real and have merit and together make up the way I feel about my father. I will not deny that I hate him, nor act on that hate. It just is. Same with the love. I don't have to do anything about it, feel it more than the other. It's just there. They're both okay.
This takes a LOT of practice. Visualization helps as well. I used to imagine holding all the hate/rage in one hand and all the love/tenderness in the other. I would work on keeping them separate and not associating any reaction to either. Eventually, they will come together in a mix that doesn't require anything from you at all.
Sorry for the rambling post. I think a lot of people would like to get to this point, but man, take it easy on yourself. It can take years.
Seldom.
poster:seldomseen
thread:858817
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20081018/msgs/859115.html