All of us experience all manner of pain regularly. From the bumps and scrapes of daily living to the pain of losing a loved one to mild or severe illness, none of us is unscathed. Living is a painful experience, even when things are going well. The human life is filled with frailties: it’s part of the deal.
Unfortunately, we humans often make things worse. For example, I only have to look at a coffee table and I’m going to have a bruise on my leg. Maybe it’s my pale skin, but it seems I always have a bruise from some bump or another. It’s always been that way. Let’s call that “pain.” Now, if I were to say to myself every time I see one of those bruises, “You are such a klutz. Why can’t you walk through your living room like a normal person and not get bruised? You are such an idiot! What is wrong with you?” By talking to myself that way, I am causing suffering. (Moment of honesty: I used to talk to myself like this a lot more often than I do now, but I do still slip now and then. I’m just getting better at noticing it and stopping it. Human frailty.)
In meditation circles, we often call this “the second arrow [or dart].” Life throws arrows at us every day, but we needlessly make things worse by throwing a second one at ourselves.
Take a look at little ways you might be causing yourself more suffering than necessary. Did you choose a highway you suspected might be congested, and now you’re stuck in a traffic jam? (“I knew I should have taken the other route! What was I thinking?” Suffering.) Did you procrastinate studying for an important exam and now have to pull an all-nighter? (And you spend half the night being mad at yourself instead if concentrating on the material. Suffering.) Did your friends warn you not to date that person because they’re a player, and now you found them cheating? (Painful, to be sure. But you berate yourself for your bad judgment, even when you still had the good sense to dump them. Suffering.) The list goes on, and we all do it. But sometimes, we waste so much energy in this cycle that we make our lives miserable.
We’re human. We make mistakes, sometimes repeatedly. Can you simply acknowledge the mistake, and move on? Can you learn from it, without chastising and demoralizing yourself? Can you simply do what needs to be done to repair the situation, if needed?
Pain is inevitable. It’s part of being on this planet. But the suffering we inflict on ourselves is largely optional. One way to practice dealing with pain is during meditation. Perhaps you have an itch you are dying to scratch, or an uncomfortable worry you feel compelled to either hash over in your mind or firmly push away. Can you, instead, simply let it be? Can you observe the sensations of that itch, without responding to it? It will likely change, and pass. Can you observe that uncomfortable thought and simply not do anything about it? Not judge yourself or feel like you have to solve it? Acceptance often yields more creative solutions than rumination.
Just once today, see if you can avoid heaping suffering on top of pain. See if your life improves even incrementally because of it.