Posted on August 10, 2011 by Deborah Cluff

We humans have come up with myriad ways to avoid feeling pain – the most common being, running from it through being insanely busy, and employing innumerable numbing out devices like tv, drugs, food, etc. At this point, I think most of us are aware of the ways we stave off uncomfortable feelings. With this in mind, it is quite ironic that, in practice, I sometimes witness resistance when it comes to letting go of the very pain one tries to evade. There is certainly no requirement and no expectation that someone should let their pain go. Yet, when it becomes clear that there is actually a choice when it comes to holding on or letting go of pain – it is not uncommon that we choose to keep it.

One potential reason for this occurred to me while listening to Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron, a wise woman who has heard the plights of thousands. She was talking about the many people who come to her and say, in essence, that their pain is so unique that nobody else could possibly understand it. In a general sense and true to Buddhist thought, her response is to remind us that pain is not only personal, but is a collectively shared experience. To understand pain from this perspective is to de-personalize it on a certain level.

De-personalization of an experience that we feel is uniquely ours may not come so naturally to the Western mind that strongly identifies with a specific self (an ego, a persona). We seem to have an attachment to who we think we are; we express ourselves, often staunchly, as individuals. It is standard to talk about one’s personality – I am this or that type of person (funny, trustworthy, rebellious…fill in the blank). True or not, we are so tied to this highly personalized identity that it could feel like an insult to suggest that at core we are, in fact, like anybody and everybody else.

Despite how we might try to wriggle away from it, is it possible that our personal pain becomes part of how we view and identify ourselves as individuals? In an attempt to answer this question, I pose another one – who (or how) would you be without your particular pain? Our answer to this question may be quite informative because it can reveal whether this pain is attached to our identity. It challenges us to see ourselves apart from the pain we feel is so distinctively ours. Are you still you without your pain and are you still just as special? In that case, de-personalizing it may feel akin to giving up some aspect of our identity. Maybe we don’t know who we’d be without personal pain as a faithful companion. In that case, it makes sense to resist letting it go.