Healthy Pain Serves Us

Don't be afraid

A friend was driving when his car starting smoking from under the hood. He pulled into his local mechanic, and found out that his engine was out of oil. ¹

I am not a car person, but even I know that oil changes are important for traditional ICE vehicles.

He knows the importance of getting his oil checked. His excuse? The oil light in his dashboard wasn't working. He was never notified.

Metaphorically speaking, that's how I feel about healthy pain. We feel the pain, and we check out what's causing it.

Many exert a great deal of energy to try to avoid or numb pain. The pain of sexual assault is excruciating. Sometime during my childhood, I learned how to numb the pain. Not by any artificial means, like food or drugs. I disassociated. I could focus my mind on something else, and not feel the pain.

That wasn't a good skill to keep. It’s helpful to feel pain so we can get out of danger!

Last month, I was working on a garden project. I wanted to make a little invisible fountain like this:

I’m done with the DIY project, but I would advise against making it yourself. Here’s one available online.

The trick to make this work, is to drill a few little holes in the top of the clear tube. Then the water pumps up from the fountain. Once the water hits the top of the clear tubing, it streams out. When a garden nozzle is put on top, the whole thing looks like magic!

I had my handy dandy drill out and was holding the clear tube in my left hand. I'd drilled about 8 little holes. Then, my hand slipped. I looked at my left index finger and blood was spurting out.

I put the drill in reverse, and slowly extracted the drill bit.

I held my hand in the air, grabbed a bunch of ice, and sat down. I was trying to decide if I needed to go to an “InstaCare” and get a stitch or two. I remembered I had some butterfly bandages. After the bleeding stopped gushing, I applied the butterfly bandages. Then, I held my hand up for quite awhile. And, I thought about pain. Or specially my high tolerance to pain.

I've come a long way since Paperdolls first came out. I feel pain now. As I was waiting for the bleeding to stop, I was wondering why I didn't feel the pain this time. Finally, I realized that it was because I was concentrating so much on the project, I wasn't aware of anything else.

Not feeling the pain, even if I was deeply focused on making my cute little garden decor, is not a good thing. Pain is a natural notifier. I need to be able to feel it before I notice the blood spouting out of my finger.

We are all learning and growing. Obviously, I'm not all done. Maybe I'll never be. But, I commit to being more aware of my body and my surroundings even when I'm "in the zone."

Please don't be afraid of pain. It is natural and helps us know when something is amiss. Trust me on that. We don't want our internal "engines" to get damaged because our healthy indicators are broken.

1. Electric vehicles (EVs) do not require engine oil. Needless to say, he doesn't an an EV. This post isn't about oil changes, this is merely an analogy.