The Nature of Pain

Phys­i­cal pain tells you not to do some­thing again. Get your hand off the stove! What you are doing will cause scars. You have reached your limit exer­cis­ing. You have stretched that mus­cle or joint far enough. Pain is good. It pro­tects us from phys­i­cal self-destruction.

Emo­tional pain works along the same lines but is much more com­plex. It warns us of dam­age to the soul or to the psy­che. Nar­cis­sis­tic injury can last a life­time. If we could see our dam­aged souls, we would be amazed that most of us are in psy­cho­log­i­cal wheel­chairs. Our wounds are deep and griev­ous.

A bro­ken bone heals in about six weeks. A bro­ken heart takes decades. Be care­ful how you treat oth­ers. Be care­ful about your own vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties. A sin­gle word can crush the soul like a falling boul­der crushes the body. The flip­pant words of our cur­rent world are bul­lets in dis­guise. You will need some armor.

Emo­tional pain blinds us to our own actions. Every­one acts out in one way or another from it. Some­times it becomes a life­time script. Worse yet, we try to “cor­rect” these peo­ple by adding more pain to their lives (which makes as much sense as throw­ing gaso­line on a fire).

If we could see our souls as we see our bod­ies, we would be hor­ri­fied at the wounds, the scars, and the hob­bling we have to do just to get through each day. Emo­tional pain is more con­ta­gious than any virus. It spreads itself around in a thou­sand forms. It even hides in “do-gooder” actions of the con­de­scend­ing. Beware of res­cuers that have not dealt with their own wounded-ness. They will “save” you by hurt­ing you even more.

They wanted Jesus to help stone the woman caught in adul­tery. The dis­ci­ples wanted him to call fire down on the ones that frus­trated their cause. He refused to do such things. Shoot­ing the wounded was just not his style. We kick oth­ers to avoid our own pain. The avalanche that fol­lows buries us all.

Lick your emo­tional wounds with heal­ing self-talk and prayer. Suck it up rather than pass it along. Grieve and go on. Take time off. Avoid the pain-spreaders like you would a ter­ror­ist. Take up the crosses that are yours but do not inflict them on others.