Quotes About Pain

I've always been scared to death of pain - afraid, even, to think of it.

The horrors of war pale beside the loss of a mother." -Anna

It was the first time she'd experienced separation, and the empty feeling deep inside her hurt something awful. She had no one to talk to, no one to explain the hollowness.

But many people come to therapy seeking closure. Help me not to feel. What they eventually discover is that you can't mute one emotion without muting the others. You want to mute the pain? You'll also mute the joy.

But Wendell told me that by diminishing my problems, I was judging myself and everyone else whose problems I had placed lower down on the hierarchy of pain. You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seem like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.

Well you seem like you're enjoying the experience of suffering, so I thought I'd help you out with that... There's a difference between pain and suffering,' Wendell says, 'You're going to have to feel pain- everyone feels pain at times- but you don't have to suffer so much. You're not choosing the pain, but you're choosing the suffering

There's a term for this irrational fear of joy: cherophobia (chero is the Greek word for "rejoice"). People with cherophobia are like Teflon pans in terms of pleasure—it doesn't stick (though pain cakes on them as if to an ungreased surface).

During an initial burst of pain, people tend to lash out either at others or at themselves, to turn the anger outward or inward.

You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seen like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.

I regularly made an effort to remember one of the most important lessons from my training: There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses?

You want to mute the pain? You'll also mute the joy.

You're going to have to feel pain—everyone feels pain at times—but you don't have to suffer so much. You're not choosing the pain, but you're choosing the suffering.

There's a difference between pain and suffering,

You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me.

There is a continuing decision to be made as to whether to evade pain, or to tolerate it and therefore modify it.

joy isn't pleasure; it's anticipatory pain.

But if I live in the present, I'll have to accept the loss of my future. Can I sit through the pain, or do I want to suffer?

You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing.

but you don't have to suffer so much. You're not choosing the pain, but you're choosing the suffering.

I point out to her that pain can be protective; staying in a depressed place can be a form of avoidance. Safe inside her shell of pain, she doesn't have to face anything, nor does she have to emerge into the world, where she might get hurt again.

you can't mute one emotion without muting the others. You want to mute the pain? You'll also mute the joy.

But now the kiss has presented another crisis for Rita—possibility. And that may feel even more intolerable to her than her pain.

I've sat with patients who describe their grief as "monstrous" and "unbearable"; one patient, quoting something she heard, said it made her feel "alternately numb and in excruciating pain.

As a therapist, I know a lot about pain, about the ways in which pain is tied to loss. But I also know something less commonly understood: that change and loss travel together. We can't have change without loss, which is why so often people say they want change but nonetheless stay exactly the same. To help John, I'm going to have to figure out what his loss would be,