The body uses pain to warn us that something is wrong in our life, that we made a wrong turn somewhere, that something isn’t right. We feel like we are abusing our bodies.

Many people daily have to live with the pain they don’t know how to eliminate. It can occupy a small, insignificant part of our mind, or it can subjugate our whole lives to it. But do we even know what pain is? We can probably all agree that it is something that we want to get rid of. But where does it come from, and what is it trying to tell us? Let’s see if we can learn something from it.

What is pain, and what is it trying to tell us

If we check the dictionary, pain is labeled as a localized or generalized unpleasant bodily sensation or complex of sensations that causes mild to severe physical discomfort and emotional distress and typically results from bodily disorder (such as injury or disease) or mental or emotional distress or suffering. Because pain can result from bodily or mental discomfort, it is clear that both mind and body can be affected by it. It appears in many forms. A scar. A bruise. An illness. Insomnia. Paranoia. Numbness. Sometimes it’s extremely severe, and sometimes it’s very mild, but we can always feel it. And it’s always trying to tell us something. 

Sometimes, the message is clear. If our stomach aches during the work week but not during weekends, it can try to tell us to find a different job. The significance of the pain we feel after a night of excessive drinking is probably familiar to many of us. Whatever the message might be, we must remember that the human body is a magnificently built system that is coordinated and efficient that will run without pain for as long as we provide the correct conditions for it. As soon as it detects trouble, it will sound an alarm – and when it does, it’s wise to listen to why it did so. Sadly, many people aren’t ready to do just that.

The body is always longing for optimal efficiency and coordination both on our inside and outside, no matter what we are using it for. However, if we drain it of energy through overworking or overtraining ourselves, we are abusing it and creating the conditions for the appearance of pain and illness. 

How do we eliminate pain

What do we usually do when we feel pain, such as headaches, heartburn, or sore muscles? We usually seek aid in the medicine cupboard or go to the nearest pharmacy. We rarely think about what we should change in our actions (daily tasks, work, sports activities, and relationships). When we take a painkiller at the first sign of discomfort, we are actually telling the body, “Be quiet. I don’t want to listen to you.”

The pain will go away for a while, but then it will inevitably come back again, and this time it will be more severe. We will probably ask the doctor for advice, get a prescription or an injection.

But we will not eliminate the cause with this. The condition for the onset of pain is sufficiently high energy coming from a certain part of the body to the central nervous system.

If it is strong enough, we also perceive it in our consciousness; we realize that something is not as it should be. This means that the system cannot respond to warnings of inefficient and uncoordinated functioning of the body without the involvement of consciousness. It is precisely her analytical and rational ability that is therefore needed to find a solution outside the automated patterns that exist in the subconscious levels of the central nervous system. Much like a child cries when he cannot fix the imbalance independently and needs a parent to fix what he does not know yet with higher qualifications.

This way, we can better understand why pain is our friend, not our enemy. It allows us to realize and accept the truth that something in us is not as it should be or that our relationship to ourselves and our surroundings are not well thought out, appropriate and effective.

Suppose we ignore the problem for too long and don’t notice our real problem (whether it is lack of sleep, chronic fatigue, poor diet, wrong movements in sports …). In that case, it can happen that the disease will develop from occasional discomfort. Therefore, we must pay attention to what is going on in our bodies to listen to any warnings. The solution may be very simple: we may only need some good sleep or a day or two of vacation. Don’t let yourself think: “No, I really cannot afford that (missing out on work, a good night’s sleep, a healthier diet). Think about where the cause of your problems might be, and don’t be afraid of changes that can only be positive for you. Last year was, for the most part, a time when we experienced many changes to which our subconscious regulatory system did not have the right responses. So we had to think a lot more about what we were doing, why, and how. This slowed down our performance and often generated lots of energy that is needed for changing us whole, but at the same time, it pushed us into a state of anxiety or caused a depression of feeling, making us feel as if we did not feel the pain that alerted us to the inadequacy of our automatics. We had the opportunity to painfully learn how we respond and how we tolerate unforeseen, rapid, and major changes.

The body wants to be healthy

Just as pain is uncomfortable, it is also necessary for us to observe relationship irregularities, relationship cracks, inadequacies of knowledge and skills, and responses that shape our behavior and character. It is good to know how we act, whether this awareness suits us or not, and understand what is happening and respond to it properly. This way, we can maintain control over life and prepare for the inevitable arrival of a stress test that is repeated every few years, be it in the form of an injury, separation, corona, earthquake, or closure of public life.

We can say that pain indicates a lack of sufficient attention of consciousness to the body, its functioning and movement, and time for it. Therefore, the body tries to attract our attention with it and gives us time by forcibly stopping the whole. Due to our wrong beliefs about pain, we want to stay away from it as much as possible, in any way (various therapies, painkillers …). Allow yourself to listen to your body because it wants us well, the body wants us to be healthy, and your consciousness must somehow participate in this, for otherwise unknowingly saws the branch on which it sits.