Let your pain teach you how to be pain-free

Sochu Roshi used to say something really strange about pain.

As we tried to keep sitting still through the unrelenting pain, Sochu would often say: “Pain is your friend”.

Going back 30 years, when I lived in London, Sochu Roshi, the abbot of Ryutaku-ji zen monastery in Japan, used to make annual visits to the London Zen Society (which he founded). To many of us, prolonged sitting cross-legged was difficult and very painful. During sesshin, we used to sit for up to eight hours a day in this position.

I used to finish a week-long sesshin feeling really stretched and limber. At the same time, I was stiff and sore — as though I’d been put on a rack.

How that pain could be my friend always eluded me. Not understanding the purpose of that pain, the pain never stopped.

Now 30 years older and just a little wiser, I help people understand and use their pain to live more fully. That’s when their pain stops bugging them.

Understanding pain

When you understand the pain your body gives you, you can interpret what it’s telling you correctly and react appropriately.

When you don’t understand pain, you end up fighting it — and that just makes you as tight as a tick. When you try to tackle pain without understanding what it’s telling you, the pain always wins.

So what should you do?

When you expect a movement to hurt

You need to accept that the movement will hurt a little and just move anyway.

Say your neck is painful and you expect it to hurt when you turn your head to look at something. Just look. Just turn your head.

Don’t turn it carefully or fearfully, just turn. Turn without bracing against the expected pain. When you do this, you do indeed get the sharp stab of pain you expected — but then it’s gone. The rest of that movement becomes incredibly easy.

(There is one exception to this rule: if you’ve just had an accident, you need to stay still until you’ve found out what the damage is. Once you know it’s safe to move, just move.)

It’s exactly the same when you bend your back — or your knee. Once you stop fearing that sharp stab of pain, you won’t get it any more.

Why does this happen?

It happens because you mis-understand the pain

You know that pain is a warning signal telling you that something is wrong. That’s absolutely true: it is a warning signal. What you are mis-understanding is what the pain is warning you about.

You thought the pain was telling you that the movement you need to make is harmful. What it’s really telling you is that the movement you are making is harmful. The pain is saying: “You’re going about this in the wrong way”.

For example, when your neck is painful and you turn your head carefully to avoid the pain, you get the expected pain. You get it because you are turning your head carefully. Once you just turn it (and let your body decide how best to do it) the pain goes.

Would you try to get rid of your best friend?

That’s right. Your pain is your best friend. It’s trying to show you something you really need to know. How can it do that when you keep trying to get rid of it?

Your pain is such a faithful friend that it’s always there when you need its help. When you don’t need it, it leaves you alone.

And, because your pain is such a faithful friend, it doesn’t let itself be put off when you try to get rid of it. Your pain just patiently keeps on telling you that you’re going about your task in the wrong way. It never gives up.

Once you stop, once you let your body work properly, the way it needs to, you no longer need the pain. What does the pain do then? It goes away and leaves you alone.

Could you ask for a more devoted friend than that?

The moral of the tale

The moral of the tale is this: the thing you were doing to try and get rid of the pain is precisely what the pain was warning about. Since you keep doing it, you keep getting the warning. Once you stop, the pain stops too.

That’s the plain truth of the matter. That’s what I missed when I was sitting with Sochu Roshi.

The next step is to put it into practice

What is your muscular pain? Chances are I’ve written an article about your particular pain.

If I have, read the article, do what it says and tell me how you get on. If I haven’t, let me know what your pain is and I’ll write an article specially to help you.