Don’t be a Tough Guy or Gal

Last week a woman in an online illness support group that I participate in–I’ll call her Ellen–shared with the group that her hair had fallen out and then had grown back in, but it now looked weird. Ellen wrote that she was sad because she used to have very pretty hair. Then she said she knew it was dumb to fret over hair.

I responded by saying that it was not at all dumb for her to fret about her hair or to be sad that it looked weird. I suggested that she give herself lots of compassion for what she had gone through and the sadness she felt. She wrote again and said that she had gone to a chronic pain management program, and in it was told not to complain about anything, including pain. She was also told that expressing  negative feelings to ourselves or others is harmful, and to always realize things could be worse.

Since I didn’t attend that chronic pain management course myself, I only have the information about it that Ellen provided to go on. I know it’s not helpful to complain about things. But it seems to me that the people who taught that course were misguided in saying that expressing  negative feelings to ourselves or others is harmful.

What you and I need to do to successfully manage both physical and emotional pain is to fully acknowledge it, including how much it hurts and all the difficulties it causes in our lives. Then the next step is for us to give ourselves as much compassion as we possibly can for our pain and all those difficulties we’ve been experiencing. I have found, with both my clients and myself, that trying to tough it out and ignore pain only works for a limited period of time. Eventually the pain becomes so severe or causes problems so serious that they can’t be ignored. So the best way to manage pain and have lives  we truly love in spite of it is the way I’ve described.

I would love to hear your thoughts about this post, and what has worked best for you.