A friend of mine came to me yesterday and asked me about her pain. She asked what I thought that she should do about the pain that she was having in her hip that was so excruciating it was keeping her from sleeping at night. What would I do if it were my hip pain? Go to urgent care, visit an emergency room, schedule an orthopedic appointment possibly weeks in the future, or tough it out and just take some Motrin?
This conversation got me to thinking about pain in general and the amount of pain that the people of this country and even the world are experiencing right now. The Covid-19 pandemic, political upheaval in many of our cities, and overall fear of the future. Our beautiful world is falling into so much unrest and pain right now, I wonder if we will ever recover.
Is there anything good about pain?
“Pain is a guarantee that you will be changed.”, says John Maxwell.
There is no one that is untouched by pain in life. Our response to painful experiences is what determines how that pain will change and mold us. Will you cave to the pressure to respond in weakness, or will you rise up and fight for something better? Will you develop into a better person, or will you slide into bitterness and hate?
Tony Robbins says, “we do things for one of two reasons, to seek pleasure or avoid pain.” Our pain does not have to be physical, in fact most change in our life is created by emotional pain. When we experience negative emotion, we are motivated to look inward. We will be motivated to change more by pain than by any success. Pain changes our overall perspective.
We need pain in order to protect ourselves. It is a warning that something physically or emotionally has gone wrong and we are motivated to change it. Pain changes us for the better or worse. We can change our attitude, perspective, habits, and principles in order to work for good.
Rather than looking at pain as a punishment, we can choose to see it as a signal that we need to change course ever so slightly to reduce the pain, thus keeping us on a path to betterment and strength.
Pain is just life experience that you may use to become a better human. Let’s choose better.
Dr. Julie Cappel
“ Pain nourishes courage. You can’t be brave if you’ve only had wonderful things happen to you.” – Mary Tyler Moore
” Sometimes you must hurt in order to know, fall in order to grow, lose in order to gain, because life’s greatest lessons are learnt through pain.” –Nagato
The Veterinary Life Coach Podcast with Dr. Julie Cappel
