Parlez-Vous Pain?
Do you speak pain?
Have you ever been asked if you speak a particular language? French, Spanish or Mandarin, maybe.
That could have happened, but I bet you haven't been asked if you speak pain.
Pain has a language of its own, and if you experience persistent pain, then there is an excellent chance that you don’t speak pain.
Now is the time to learn because you can choose whether the pain you feel should stay or go once you understand.
The Language of Pain?
What do I mean when I talk about the language of pain?
If you think about words you hear in a different language, they have no meaning if you do not know what the sounds are communicating. They just sound like a chaotic group of words and letters, which create noise that has no meaning.
Even if you asked the person saying those words to repeat them, it would not likely make much difference.
You could say to the person in a slower, louder voice that you ‘DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE SAYING’.
If they did repeat it slowly, there may be a familiar aspect of one or two of the words that you could guess, and they may also use other non-verbal communication to demonstrate what they are trying to communicate.
Similar Language
Pain is a very similar language to understand. It takes practice to understand, and just as in French, Spanish or Mandarin; it takes several months to become fluent. Learning this way is much easier when you are young because the immersion that comes with gaining knowledge in youth feels effortless, and there are many fewer barriers to learning than in adulthood.
The fears of self-criticism, embarrassment and self-esteem can interfere with natural learning mechanisms. Without these in a happy and healthy child, the gateway to learning any language is open.
If that wasn't the case for you, you might not have had the opportunity others have had when learning the language of pain.
But that does not mean you cannot learn the language of pain now.
Decipher Pain
You can slowly decipher the meaning of the messages you are experiencing. From that understanding, you have the potential to take action, which shows you have a comprehension of these critical messages.
Je pense qu’il-y-a une probleme.
I think that there is a problem.
That's what these words mean, and that's what pain is saying.
It is the total of our unconscious regulatory systems monitoring internal and external environments to determine if there is any danger that we should become conscious of.
It uses memories, predictions, current circumstances, neurochemicals, innate predispositions, physiological receptors, positions in space, people, places, social situations and environmental conditions.
It uses metaphors, messages, and pathways of circumstance and memory.
Complex Vocabulary
It has such a complex vocabulary that we cannot consciously understand how all the words have formed. However, it is so essential to understand this communication.
In the same way that during sign language, we do not need to know what muscles are bending each finger and hand into a specific shape; we only need to know the meaning of their shape to get the required interpretation.
If you are interested in learning the nuts and bolts of the muscles that bend fingers and hands, then all is well and good, but it is not relevant to understanding sign language.
With pain, you just have to understand the meaning of the shapes, sensations and feelings which appear with it. So you have to take the correct action to get the right result.
Wrong Message = Wrong Action
If you don’t quite get the correct message of persistent pain and guess or just act instinctually, then don't be surprised if the outcome isn't the one you want.
If pain is saying that there is a problem, then from that construct, you have to determine what to do. Because we have to quickly decide what to do based on our conscious senses, we don’t always get it right, relying on just sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch.
We’re often looking at persistent pain in the present and only looking for a cause.
We're trying to decipher that sensation as quickly as possible, and based on our current perception; we mistake the presentation as one of imminent danger, damage or injury.
Because based on what we understand about the language of pain, the message appears to be saying that.
More Than One Meaning
Unfortunately, that is just one of the meanings, and with persistent pain, it rarely means new danger, damage or injury in the present moment.
Because the unconscious processing of this unpleasant output incorporates all those invisible contributions listed previously, our eyes, ears, tongue, nose, and skin don’t have the conscious awareness, time and rationale to consider those things.
Pain is a stressful sensation and requires the fastest action to resolve it.
Why not use what appears to be the fastest solution for that problem?
If it resolves it completely, you have the correct understanding, but if pain reappears repeatedly or becomes a constant blight on your life, something is missing.
There’s an apparent misunderstanding in how you react to your pain, or there’s a nuance that is so subtle that it sends you in the wrong reactive direction.
Time To Study
Only by studying any language can you start to improve, only by going slow. Yes, some people move to another country and throw themselves into it, but it's a lot of exposure and effort.
Pain is the same. You don’t have to study the mechanisms of each word and how it is all constructed, but you do have to understand its valid message and nuance.
Start with the idea that many people in persistent pain have that pain is communicating new danger, damage and injury.
Consider whether the pain is saying there could be danger based on what we’ve learned from before; this situation we recognise looks like something similar in the past where the damage happened, and we’re getting close to the circumstances where injury could occur. So we don’t want you to experience that again.
Innate Is Not Foolproof
The innate protective mechanisms that we are born with and react to without comprehension are a great starting point.
But pain needs so much more nuanced comprehension that comes through learning.
Then pain can be listened to rationally with conscious awareness. Yes, reactions can still occur, but occasionally pain may be responded to and tolerated to get through challenging moments and achieve amazing things. So given the proper context, such as sport or work, handling pain may bring reward or achievement.
But when pain is misinterpreted, the complex regulatory alarms that sense the organism's overall behaviour continue to fire despite the person's efforts.
It is often because the reactions to that pain are unconscious and instinctual desperate attempts to banish pain based on the incorrect belief that new danger, damage or injury is apparent.
Clarity Is Powerful
The clarity that appears by even learning a few new words in the language of pain can be transformative.
Pain is only ever a protective signal for you to attend to yourself.
If you choose to stop the lesson there and learn no more of that language, that sentence alone will still serve you well.
But if you choose to explore the language of pain more and look at what else is apparent when it appears, you may start to see yourself stringing together words that form sentences of recovery in your life.
You’ll notice who you were with when the pain appeared. You’ll notice what you were about to go and do when it occurred, which may have been difficult in the past. You may see movements or emotions that you anticipate as triggering and places, times and events.
Understanding Removes Fear
This understanding removes the fear-based perspective that focuses on the pain or the part of the body where it exists and often distracts you from seeing.
The unconscious brain triggers pathways of reaction based on what you have understood, but if your understanding changes, so will your responses.
The confidence which comes with those first few new words of any language brings excitement to learn more. With pain, you can start to explore timelines of what you've misunderstood in the past and find historical aspects of your pains that now make sense.
Historical Lessons
You don’t have to go back to look forwards, but you may find it easy to see what your lessons in pain were like when you consider how your childhood guardians expressed pain. It may help to see that this learning took place at a moment of total unconsciousness for you and most likely them, so whatever pain vocabulary you currently possess is not your fault.
However, the most important thing to know is that you are starting to open your mind to a new understanding of the language of pain by reading this text.
Framing a painful experience as one of learning sounds excellent in theory but difficult for us all in reality.
To not react to persistent pain, not feel fear, frustration and anger at its presence or reemergence feel unnatural, but it is necessary. There will be a resistance to learning this as anything else learned as an adult.
Conscious Intent
It takes a little conscious intent but, more importantly, emotional engagement.
It has to be the right combination of both.
A short moment of intention to act measured on the scale of effort as low. But you attach a sizeable emotional charge of self-reward to this small learning effort.
It is that moment that starts to lay down the new dialogue of responses that will appear as freely available for you to use when your pain starts a conversation with you again.
No More Confusion
Your persistent pain will no longer start to confuse you, threaten or scare you. Instead, the uncertainty will disappear as you broaden the scope of where you anticipate it arriving and prepare your words and thoughts for if it does.
The significant part of this process is that when you prepare rationally for situations where you know there will be no actual danger, damage or injury, you rarely have to use the words for those situations as the fear, frustration and annoyance stop turning up.
And long before you feel fluent in this new language of pain, the pain will stop too.
What’s next?
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