Working with pain

“Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness” – Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

Most people who start meditating do so to gain peace of mind.
Eyes closed, silence, comfort… you relax and let the stress fade away.
Nothing wrong with starting this way.

And yet, any receipe that works only under optimal conditions is nothing but a holiday.

Taking a 20min or 2h or 2 week getaway is refreshing for the mind and body, but tip toeing around work’s discomforts never leads to your best work possible.

While you work, you can only do your best if you lean in wholeheartedly.
Not forever. The mind rebels against a life sentence. Just for the next few minutes or hours.
So how to deal with pain while you work?

ALL DISCOMFORT IS BODILY PAIN

“The trick is not minding that it hurts.” – Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia

Psychological, spiritual, physical pain… they are all ultimately experienced as unpleasant sensations in your body.
In a way all fear is fear of experiencing unpleasant sensations.
Developing an ability to be with discomfort is therefore a super power.

The thought loops cause you misery because they *feel* terrible.
Trying to figure out the mental battle is almost always a never-ending circle.
All those unpleasant emotions are coloring your thinking…
…and reactive emotions give rise to reactive thoughts.

MAY PAIN BE WITH YOU

…if you have an aversion to your panic, panic becomes your enemy and your panic becomes stronger… There is a third option … to make friendship with panic … (for this) there are three meditation techniques. Calm and abiding meditation. Kindness and compassion meditation and pranayama meditation. – Mingyur Rinpoche

Meditation focused on your pain can in fact be your most reliable anchor to stay present.
You can count on it arising again and again: discomfort, tension, anxiety.
In subtle or obvious ways, pain is in your body.

If you try to observe the pain and dissolve it proactively, that just creates more aversion towards it.
Embrace it, welcome it, and sooner or later it will leave… usually only to come back shortly after, but it is never permanently entrenched.
It is the reactiveness to discomfort that makes it stick around and distract you.

Once you start expecting pain at designated times every day, you can welcome it without surprise, without resitance, with a knowing nod – “welcome back”. Counterintuitively, once you and pain become one, there is pain no more – only awareness remains. 

BEWARE THE MARTIR MINDSET

The point of work is not to feel pain.
The point of work is not to get tired.
The point of work is to re-shape reality.

Pain just happens to be a frequent visitor whenever exploring unknown territory, as most great work demands.
Be careful not to glorify discomfort or pain of any sort. It is rational to minimize them: your work environment, your concentration rituals, your best tools for the trade. They are all meant to help reduce friction and get into the work itself.

Only the pain that arises uninvited during the work must be yielded.
Most other pain can be avoided or dismantled through strategy.

USEFUL OR USELESS

Working hard does not mean working long hours. 
Working hard does not mean being stressed out or out of control.
Working hard does means working through discomfort – but you can do it calmly, without wasteful tension.

Stress is usually seen as negative stress, but there is also eustress, known as positive strees.
The pain of stepping on a nail vs the pain of running laps.
The pain of poison vs the pain of medicine.

ACTION IMPLICATIONS

• Attempt optimal conditions in preparation, but disregard them once in execution.
• When friction, discomfort or even pain show up, ask yourself: is this poison or medicine?.
• If it is not poison, stay the course until the next stop.
• Always have a next stop to reward concentrated effort.
• Befriend your pain, it is with you for a lifetime.