Chronic emotional pain versus acute

Posted on March 02, 2020 by Reem Ahmed , One of Thousands of Family Coaches on Noomii.

One day I asked a question on social media about chronic pain versus acute pain. I was curious to know how do people perceive them, which one do they think is more dangerous, and whether both can be cured following the same procedures and techniques. I wondered how would that work for soul, heart and mental pain due to negative life experiences, and whether people think that a single acute negative experience in life can counterbalance the many chronic life experiences another person encounters during a life time. Will the same healing process be suitable for both? Can we claim that both people require the same amount of time to overcome their trauma?

Someone replied to my wonders by a profound statement: “Unfortunately doctors and medical researchers pay less attention to chronic pain although in a long term it is more detrimental”. Which is very true in physical pain, and when it comes to mental, heart and soul pain it is even more catastrophic. And the reason is we experience double ignorance when it comes to non-physical chronic pain, the first ignorance is due to the fact that pain is intangible (like an unseen ghost in a dark night), and the second ignorance is because this pain comes in small dosages which people can usually tolerate.

Let’s be realistic here, have you ever seen the heart of someone bleeding due to pain felt after death of a beloved or a big loss they have experienced? Or do you see pieces of someone’s face and body crushed to the ground because of being undermined by their superiors like their bosses, richer people, employers, more powerful people, older colleagues at school etc. on a daily basis? The answer is obviously NO although this might be what is exactly felt. And because we don’t see it, we can’t acknowledge it, hence we tend to ignore it.

Moreover, such incidents which come in low doses are unfelt because they don’t usually cross the threshold of people with average pain tolerance, and with time they find themselves getting addicted to this pain and don’t feel it, they get numbed, and this secret ghost of unhappy feelings keeps destroying their cells silently until one day it comes in the form of a fatal/detrimental physical breakout.

We need to be aware that if these unhappy/unhealthy feelings stay for long periods of time, they become very dangerous, because they keep penetrating our minds hearts and souls constantly. And because they don’t cross our limits of tolerance at one time (like a strong shocking electric pulse), we tend to disvalue them, thinking that they are easy matters not worth our attention, and will disappear with time, but with this persistent ignorance for repetitive small dosages of negative experiences, we may end up one day suffering from long term illness and possibly destructive depression causing all types of fatal diseases (including but not exclusive to cancer), let alone the negative mind programs we develop that triggers all this hidden pain whenever similar experience cross our roads. And all of the sudden, we feel shocked and confused, and start wondering in a huge dismay: how could this happen to us?! Why are we experiencing this fatal illness?! When this has happened?! What brought me here?! Without admitting that our continuous denial to what was happening in small dosages built up over time and decided to show up in a form of physical existence as a form of disease attacking our most vulnerable organ (as every human being has a particular vulnerable organ which is prone to be attacked if enough toxins accumulate in his/her body, and this organ differs from one person to another) and tell us with a firm tone: Look! Watch out! Feel! Listen! TAKE ACTION TO STOP WHAT IS HAPPENING BECAUSE I CAN’T TAKE IT ANY MORE!!

During the same period of my contemplation about chronic non-physical pain versus acute one, I attended a social gathering, where a nice lady was talking about inner strength and how people can get inspired by others who possess similar qualities like them and achieved their goals. What she mentioned brought my attention to an important fact about how “like can teach like” with great ease. We can learn photography from a professional photographer with ease and joy because he is simply sharing his experiences, mistakes and Aha moments. We can learn carpentry from a carpenter, farming from a farmer and any technical skill from a professional practitioner with the same level of joy because of the same reasons.

Then I wondered: what about heart, mind and soul pain? Can’t they be cured by learning from someone who experienced similar pains and found a way to overcome them permanently? Surely they can, because simply like can teach like, and like can cure like as well, under one condition: people with chronic pain can motivate others with chronic pain, and people with acute experiences can inspire those with similar acute experiences, because then they will be speaking the same language and exchanging similar scripts, stories, failures and even small successes during their journey. I agree it requires a lot of work to find the right match, but I strongly believe the results are worth it. As when we do this, we don’t only cure people from their pain, improve their health and make them feel happier, but we also save the society from negative programming to people’s minds that subconsciously took place with the repetitive chronic pain. And I’ll not be surprised if we discover one day how this healing process affects the genetic memory inherited by the coming generations.

We also keep hearing stories like: she survived cancer, he overcame kidney failure, they survived an earthquake, and the story usually comes very cryptic, without mentioning any details about how many disappointments they went through to overcome their hurdles every single day, how many times they thought they will not make it to the next day, and what they did to recover their inner strength and keep moving forward. And the solution I think is by giving these people the chance and encouragement to tell their stories, and listen to them with full attention and great respect to the effort they endured to put off a bad habit (which may lead to a catastrophic conclusion one day), to overcome an undermining situation, to recover from a fatal disease, to survive a natural disaster and having to live to the consequent losses for whatever was theirs one day, to overcome heart or physical or mental pain, to find their way after feeling totally disoriented. And after that, we need to listen to their stories again and again with the same passion, live their stories, share them, contemplate them until we start feeling this spark inside us to start taking similar steps and keep moving forward.

Another person on the social media where I shared my question stated that: “praying is the best remedy”, but here comes a question: if praying can be enough then why do we see many people who never miss their prayers still suffer from spiritual pain as well as mind and heart aches? And I am not asking this question to deny what he declared by any means, but rather to emphasize on its importance after adding to it a minor, but crucial catalyst; which is focus and being connected. So if we do our prayers which are supposed to be live conversations with GOD, then we must give him the full attention we give to any person who we need to close a great deal with, demand their urgent help, or we carry enormous gratitude to. After we give him our full attention, we need to remain focused during the whole conversation (or at least do our best to, by keep calling back our mind when it gets detached), and then leave ourselves to the moment so that we create the full connection and the conversation passes fluently with great joy. Only then we can say that prayer is the best remedy. Otherwise it will not only lose its great healing effect, but also lose its powerful meaning of being thankful to GOD for his gifts, or approaching him demanding his support and help, believing that he is the greatest Power ever who can solve all our issues and has got the nonnegotiable ability and willing to give us whatever we want, no matter how non-imaginable or impossible it could be.

Another important aspect is consistency. We can’t do a single or even 10 great, full hearted prayers in a life time and claim they are enough, and that we have done what is required to be in the best mood ever, and endless happiness, no matter what happens next, because life challenges never stop. They don’t have to always be in a form of mental torture or dangerous accident, they can rather be as simple as a car fine, or tax increase or even a nice trip we couldn’t make, and at the same time they are enough to bother us and alter our mood; which in turn can cause another trouble to take place starting a domino effect process just because of the negative thinking we got dragged into by simple incidents, and we did nothing to stop them or shift our negative thinking. Here comes the value of consistency in doing those special prayers with strong connection to the Creator; which can only occur if we give him the attention, stay focused during the conversation, obey the rules of the conversation and lose ourselves to the moment, having full trust that this what will keep us aligned with our goals in life, get rid of its greatest obstacles and place in our paths the right examples of others to learn from, and recover from any trauma or fatal incident, be it chronic pain or even acute.

*The information expressed in this article are ones of the writer based on her personal views and experiences not based on medical or scientific research or claims.