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Last time I wrote about overcoming your fear of pain.
Today I want to clarify healthy pain versus unhealthy pain.
Healthy pain, or what I like to call clean pain is the pain associated with being a human being. Mostly this pain comes from loss. All of us will experience loss in our lives. Examples of this include:
My dog died
My best friend moved across the country
My partner went overseas to serve our country
My college went virtual and campus dorms were closed
I was let go from my job
The guy I was dating stopped calling me
My spouse left me for someone else
There are as many examples as there are people because it is a normal and expected part of being alive. We are strong enough to survive these losses but it hurts like hell. The only healthy response is to surrender to these feelings and allow them to move through you.
I’ve talked to you before about what happens when we don’t allow this movement of energy:
- we buffer our pain with food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, Netflix, web surfing, and other compulsive behaviors
- we develop physical symptoms such as stomach issues, headaches, back pain, etc while the stored pain “eats our guts out”
- we obsessively think about and analyze “the problem”
And worst of all, we abandon ourselves. Instead of staying present with what is happening in our lives and feeling it fully, we leave.
I want to encourage you to feel your clean pain.
So what is dirty pain?
Dirty pain is all of the pain caused by your thoughts.
Let’s look at the examples that can cause clean pain and see where dirty pain can come in:
| Circumstance | Clean Pain | Dirty Pain |
| My dog died | I feel sad | I wish I had spent more time with him, I should have bought the organic dog food and he wouldn’t have gotten sick, there will never be another dog as special |
| My best friend moved across the country | I miss her | We probably won’t stay as close, I may never find another best friend, this is so unfair |
| My partner went overseas to serve our country | I miss him/her | He could get killed, he could be disabled, I’ll be a 3rd wheel with all of my friends, I can’t manage everything by myself |
| My college went virtual and dorms are closed | I am disappointed | This sucks, my college experience is ruined, I won’t be able to learn online |
| I was let go from my job | I am scared | I won’t be able to pay my bills, what if I can’t find another job, there will never be another job this good |
| The guy I was dating stopped calling me | I am sad and disappointed | Why wasn’t I good enough for him? Did he find someone better? This always happens to me. |
| My spouse left me for someone else | I am devastated, sad, hurt | I’ll never get over this, men are such assholes, |
Can you see how all of the thoughts in the third column complicate your pain?
Sometimes a clients will tell me,
I just can’t help thinking that
But the truth is that we can teach our mind to stop attaching to those thoughts. The negative thoughts that we have been practicing for years can take some time to stop showing up, but the first step is that we recognize their “stickiness” and consciously stop attaching to them.
But how?
Tune in next time. I’m writing about How to Not Attach to Sticky Thoughts.
If you have any suggestions on how to do this or what has worked for you, please click comment near the title and share so others can benefit.
