The Law Of Pain

Ask Avinash Ananda

This is a series of questions and answers where the questions are asked by participants of Avinash Ananda's "live" seminars and workshops, and the answers are transcribed from Avinash's responses.

Question from Hemant:

What is the skill associated with the Law of Pain?

Avinash Ananda Answers:

Let us understand the Law Of Pain. A proper understanding of it will include the answer to your question. According to Meta Mind Alignment, the study of Leadership and Happiness, just as there are physical laws that describe duplicatable observable phenomena like 'gravity', there are also psychological laws and human behavioral laws which describe the way human beings function.

The Law of Pain, according to Meta Mind Alignment, simply states that pain is inevitable, but suffering is usually optional.?

Please note that when I use the word 'pain' in this answer, I am referring to 'emotional pain' or ' an experience of feeling emotionally hurt as a result of something or someone .'

I am not talking about physical pain.

Also please note that when I use the word 'suffering' in this answer, I am referring to the word in the context of it being

"avoidable self-perpetuated pain", "magnifying one's own pain" or "wallowing in pain for inordinate periods of time."

I am not talking about the experience of those suffering from debilitating physiological or psychological illnesses or conditions that require professional intervention nor am I referring to the suffering caused by disasters or other calamities which are beyond one's control.

There are 8 points given below which will help us understand the Law of Pain better:

1) Reasons for and benefits of suffering

Pain can be experienced due to many reasons, but suffering is usually a choice. The choice to suffer is not always conscious. It could be the result of patterned disempowering mindsets or it could be due to the fact that the benefit received from the pain far outweighs the amount of pain being experienced.

There is a certain benefit or power experienced in choosing to remain a victim, or portraying oneself as a victim... one of which is that, as a victim, one need not take any responsibility to change anything. The other benefit could be the extra attention that one gets as a victim.

Another reason that pain becomes and remains suffering is because the individual does not have the capability to break free from the cause of the pain, whether it is the environment, other people, or one's own negative mental patterns.

2) Mindset for handling pain

So the key mindset related to the Law of Pain or related to ensuring that pain does not become suffering is Responsibility. If you take responsibility, you are truly free. You are free to choose your 'response' because you have the 'ability' ( " Response" + "Ability" = "Responsibility"). People tend to shy away from responsibility because they think it means 'blame'. It doesn't. It means 'taking charge'. People also tend to think responsibility is a burden. But the reality is that responsibility sets you free. Free from the past. Free to create your future. Because now you are in charge.

When you are in charge, you will make things as you want them to be, won't you? What you truly want is happiness, isn't it? So now if you realize this truth, then you will prefer to "respond" with "ability", and not "react" in disempowering patterned "habitual" ways.

If you stop crying, complaining, criticizing, and comparing, you are on your way to develop the mindset of responsibility.

3) Skill-set for handling pain

The ability you need to develop is the skill-set of emotion management.

Emotion management is the key skill that will prevent your pain from becoming suffering. You will be resilient and bounce back faster from any pain you may experience as you go through the journey of life.

You cannot stop your feelings, but you can manage them. You must learn how.

There are other skills that will enhance your emotion management capabilities and they include persuasion, assertiveness, stress management, creativity, communication, decision-making, and self-motivation, among others.

4) Pain exists

Pain is a part of life. If you acknowledge the pain, learn from it, adapt and let it go, then it need not become suffering. Only those who have known pain can appreciate joy. You need to know darkness to experience and appreciate the light. If pain didn't exist, we wouldn't know what happiness is.

Khalil Gibran said, " The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy it can contain."

5) Pain can be a sign to change something.

Pain can be a signal to draw your attention to what's wrong so that it can be rectified, healed, or changed. If you ignore these signs, then the pain may grow. Innovate, adapt and experiment, when you experience pain.

6) Pain can be a sign of growth

Pain can also be a sign of growth. This is why you have heard of the saying, "No pain, no gain." Here the pain could be the price you need to pay to get what you want. So instead of shying away from such pain that can give you great gains, you must embrace it. And you must go through the pain to get the gain. And then that pain will dissolve and disappear.

7) Pain can be a teacher

Sometimes pain is a teacher. Why do people say "history repeats itself"?

People may behave according to beliefs which may lead them to pain. They will continue to experience a similar pain unless they learn the lesson that this pain is trying to teach them.

8) Pain can be an indication of a lack of knowledge

There is also a large amount of pain that is avoidable and unnecessary. If you simply knew better you need not have to go through this avoidable pain. This pain can be avoided with greater clarity and understanding. Anything that gives you stress and pain, is something you do not understand or are not familiar with. If you increase your knowledge and capability, you will reduce your stress and pain.

To epitomize and conclude, unavoidable pain is natural and a part of the process of living life. Suffering, however, must be avoided and ended using one's emotion management capabilities (both, mindsets and skillsets) which must be continuously developed.