Our Relationship With Pain

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“These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.” – Rumi

About 15 years ago I was climbing Mt. Whitney in the winter with my friend Jill and about 7 other climbers and 2 guides. Though Mt Whitney claims the prize as the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states at 14,505 feet, by reputation it isn’t a hard climb in the summer.

But in the winter, our approach was a couple of miles longer because the parking lot was snowed in, we had to carry heavy 55 pound packs with all the gear we needed and the route was deep with crappy snow so that even in snowshoes, we were regularly sinking in to our thighs.

I started out feeling fine but by the time we were at about 10,000 feet, my left ear was incredibly painful. I kept trudging along, not listening to the pain because I figured there wasn’t anything I could do about it. By the time we made camp at 12,000 feet I was in tears. Fortunately I didn’t impact the teams plans to climb because a storm with 60 mile per hour winds came through and we all had to go back down the next morning.

Mountaineering books are filled with stories about people who ignored their pain – usually with more dire consequences than my ear on Mt. Whitney. And of course this seems to be a universal human experience to not listen to the signals we are receiving. It’s the topic of my latest Wise and Shine (formerly Pointless Overthinking) blog post: Do You Listen To Your Pain?

(featured photo from Pexels)

34 thoughts on “Our Relationship With Pain”

  1. Diabetic foot problems are a good example of why pain is an important message. When diabetes damages nerves so that people can’t feel pain, minor problems can easily go unnoticed and turn into very significant problems.

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  3. A classic, macho USMC motto is . .

    “Pain is fear leaving your body ”

    As an ole Jarhead, I must humbly testify . . . pain frequently takes it time leaving my ancient carcass😅

    May you enjoy a pain-free day Wynne.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Oh, what an interesting motto, Fred! And I am not quite as old as you but I can tell that pain does stick around longer. However, there are some things emotionally that would have caused me lots of pain in my youth that don’t bother me know (more faith, maybe) so there’s that!

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  4. Oh what a fascinating topic with such interesting points to back it up! I feel like I’d 💯 be like your daughter and talk and talk endlessly about my pain 🤣 For me, talking has always been such a healing tool and talking about my pain seems to take away a bit of the sting maybe. Or perhaps it’s scary to feel pain and feel alone in our pain, so talking about it at least makes me feel less frightened of it. That makes me so sad to hear about animals who tend to mask their pain, omg that’s so terrible. I could go on and on and I’ll be the first to say that I hate pain and am such a baby about it. Although whenever I’ve experienced pain, I think I have handled it fairly well in the grand scheme of things…as long as I can talk about it! 🤣🤣 I think managing the mental aspect of pain can sometimes be more challenging than the pain itself, although it really depends on the pain. Sometimes, shit just hurts! ❤️‍🩹😢🥺🌺🤣

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    1. I love what you say here, Libby. “As long as I can talk about it.” I think that’s often the best way to take the pressure off the pain – air it out. And for the record, I haven’t known you long, but yet – I think you’ve done a marvelous job of handling it well! Thanks for adding this comment to the conversation. Love it!

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    2. Hi Libby! Reading your reply, I kept thinking: yes, I can handle pain better if I can talk about it, and yes: sometimes, the mental part of dealing with pain can be more difficult than the pain itself. So, thanks for voicing everything I was thinking, too! 🙂

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  5. I started having migraines when I was 6, and when I was a young teen my knees went kaput after I got kicked in them playing soccer and the subsequent cortisone shots eroded the bone.

    Even though I had real issues and was forced to learn my limitations and to respect them, I had every second person telling me I was just too young to have any health issues, so when I got Shingles in my early 20’s, I learned to push through and not respect my body, which resulted in too many relapses until they became chronic for years.

    Having a very painful, chronic condition is enough to get a person to rethink how they receive other people’s “advice” or opinions, and to go ahead and just do what is best for oneself, regardless of what other people may think.

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      1. Indeed! Our people-pleasing can cause us to push way past our limits and we end up paying the price for it!

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  6. Way to go to Mr D and Miss O for getting their shots and being brave about it – and kudos Miss O for speaking up about it.

    I wholeheartedly agree that we should not ignore pain. We live in a culture where we’re expected to act like the sheep – maybe to blend in and not stand out to predators too! – but we’re not doing ourselves any good.

    The Weeknd recently stopped his sold out stadium concert because his voice gave out. It was smart of him to do that cuz going on with the show, to serve his ego and his audience, would likely have led to deterimental damage.

    We can learn to embrace and be more vulnerable to these warning signs indeed. Thanks Wynne!

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  7. Thanks for another thought provoking post, Wynne! Until I became chronically ill, the pain I dealt with off and on I could just power through. Or rest and that would do it. Of course, I was younger then 🙂 but with pain being sometimes a daily occurrence now, I’ve definitely had to shift perspective and strategies. Like Libby above and your daughter, I think with serious pain, it helps me to verbalize it. It’s hard also to really I understand another’s pain, especially since each of us reacts differently. While our society encourages us to push ahead no matter the cost, I think you hit the nail on the head: we need to be better listeners of others and of ourselves.

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    1. What an interesting transformation that you’ve had to go through, Belle. I suppose pain is never anything that we welcome (and I’m sorry for your chronic pain) but I love your description that to deal with it you’ve had to shift perspective and strategies. Yes, may we all be better listeners!

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  8. I stubbornly try to avoid pain as much as possible. If I didn’t, how would I have unloaded the U-Haul truck after injuring my right elbow loading it in the first place? Sometimes, you have little choice but to soldier through.

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  9. Hi Wynne – great topic!
    My back/spine is my stress antennae – it tells me I’m off in some way when I am off. When I listen to it sooner rather than later I am far better off. It literally will not stop stinging until I redirect my thinking or I lay down – ha ha♥️🌈♥️

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  10. I listen to my pain when it is loud and respect the message it’s giving me. The times I’ve ignored it, bad things happened. As for quiet pain, I acknowledge it, thank it for speaking up, then keep going. But if quiet gets loud, I tune in.

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  11. A thought provoking piece Wynne.
    I think my pain sends the first warning to tell me something is not quite right with my body. If I don’t heed the warning and take measures to rid myself of it, the pain keeps escalating until it resides permanently in my body. Then it is too late to lament the fact that I was foolish to ignore the warning.
    An important fact to consider when I foolishly claim that I have a high pain threshold and therefore don’t need to see a doctor and my pain gets worse is that my family gets worried. I have no right to inflict unnecessary stress on my family about my well-being.
    That is why I try to take care of my pain when it is at the point of being unbearable so as not to create problems for anyone.

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    1. I love how you bring in the fact that caring for ourselves and listening to our pain is also caring for our loved ones, Chaya! Yes, if we don’t listen to our pain, it impacts others too! An amazing point – thank you! XOXO

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  12. Thank you for sharing!!.. pain, be it of the mind or the heart, tells us it is time to briefly stop our venture down the path of life and for us to contemplate what, and how, our actions may affect ourselves and others, a good way to help prevent more pain…. 🙂

    Hope your world is pain free and filled with happiness and until we meet again….
    May your day be touched
    by a bit of Irish luck,
    Brightened by a song
    in your heart,
    And warmed by the smiles
    of people you love.
    (Irish Saying)

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  13. I totally understand this feeling, especially when you’re undertaking such an adventure (or physical activity). It’s easy to want to ignore your pain when you’re in the middle of a climb. Then there’s also the desire to find out what our limits are that pushes us ahead. Hindsight is always 20/20, but I’d just like to say that sometimes we just don’t know. Glad things turned out all right for you!

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