On Pain

Staying clear on what the things are that matter to you, is an exercise in sensitivity to pain. Specifically letting it make you sharp and prepared to attack the world and get what you want. Pain is the internal gauge telling you with blunt honesty "This is what you are", "This is where you are."

So often our personal imaginary complex worlds is a hybrid of reality and insanity. Insanity being all the emotional patterns, good and bad, that make us misaligned with the truth of ourselves and the world around us.

But pain is turning the pressure knob of our misaligned insanity until it blows up and we can no longer lie to ourselves. Pain is a tool. Pain is the way you can see past your own imaginary bubble.

You can experience immediate pain like an injury or accident. When you are there, suddenly all that matters is how you will survive. There is great clarity in that.

You can experience creeping pain. The sort you get when "you know you should" or when you get sick and tired of something to the point of the physiological pain becomes unbearable.

The breakthrough is realizing that this pain is neither good nor bad. It's just a signal of change. Your nervous system has flagged this area physically or mentally, the flags signal that this is painful and must be fixed or changed.

It's rare that a painful event will not leave you better off in some way through evolution. Fixing a great pain will leave whole body adaptations that make you stronger.

I recently experienced an acute injury. I developed severe pain, took scans of all sorts. Blood, MRI, CT. All good. But high pain expected.

Lying down on the hospital bed your mind goes to focus on survival. In the small breaks between pain bursts you can suddenly hear all sorts of sounds, from the overhead fan, from your quiet voice. You're reset. The normal flow of monologue is no longer about racing ideas or doing X or pushing Y. But now my mind was forced to ground in itself in a painful reality. Receiving a dose of alignment with mortality.

Pain is the greatest reality-checker. Pain will show you your alignment to reality and mortality.

Pain will show you the fragility of your existence and shortness of life.

Never be afraid of pain. The reason you're afraid of it is because it makes your mind hyper-clear and you remember every time you felt it before.

It is not because pain is good or bad but because pain is truth on a visceral level. Don't fight it, let it work its job in evolving your whole existence.