Pain and Suffering

One of the most useful things I've ever learned in terms of psychology and happiness is the difference between pain and suffering.

Pain is the inevitable result of being a human. If you are fortunate enough to live a long time, sooner or later, your body will hurt. Your heart will hurt. You will stub your toe, you'll get sick, someone you love will die.

Suffering, on the other hand, is something we create with our minds in response to pain. Suffering is judging the pain ("What bad news!"), resisting the pain ("This isn't fair!"), or telling a personalized story about it ("I can't bear this any longer!"). When we tell a judgmental story about a difficult experience, we change our experience from "something that happens" to something that is inherently bad. It can even become part of our identity ("This always happens to me!") rather than being a temporary uncomfortable experience.

In fact, research has demonstrated that these judgmental stories we tend to tell about our pain actually increases the amount of pain we experience! Practices like mindfulness, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy are highly effective for reducing overall suffering caused by physical and emotional pain.

You may be thinking, "So I'm just supposed to pretend that this splitting headache isn't awful?"

What I'm suggesting is actually the opposite of pretending. It's remaining dedicated to the deeper truth, which is that your splitting headache is exactly what it is, no more and no less. Try using descriptive language instead. "I notice an intense throbbing located behind my eyes. It slows my thinking and is causing a sensitivity to light." A dedication to descriptive language rather than judgmental language is a first step in shifting your relationship with your headache from reactive (a.k.a. "suffering") to accepting (a.k.a. "mere pain"). This may seem like a small change, but I encourage you to try it for yourself.