Life-Sparring With Pain – Turning Suffering into a Challenge

I would not consider myself the least bit masochistic, but I admit that I have somewhat of an ambivalent relationship with pain.

For once, I am fascinated with physical suffering. On any given day, we have a hard time imagining the intense feeling of pain; we struggle to describe it unless we feel it.

Once we are in pain, it screams right inside of our head from the top of its lunges, crowding out almost all balanced thoughts and feelings with its incredible noise. It’s even more egoistic than other emotions like hunger or lust, making our complete existence just about itself.

Visiting the Pain Cave

Just like most people, I live mostly a jolly good life free from pain, a fact that I surely don’t always appreciate enough.

This is one of the reasons, while I believe that it is valuable to visit the “pain cave” occasionally with full intention.

The “joy” of trail running - the author on Lantau Peak, Hong Kong, during a 2019 trail race.

Don’t worry; I do not purposely hit my thumb with a hammer. But I do things like participating in trail running races. If you are starting line of a 50 km (31 miles) trail race, it is not so much a question of if you will experience pain, but when you will do so. Blisters, cramps, chafing, scratches, bumped toes, and the dull pain caused by fatigue and dehydration are just as much part of the racing experience as participation shirts and finisher medals.

And while some runners pop a painkiller at the starting line, I would never do so. Dancing with the pain devil is one of the reasons while I do those races. I am not running for records, medals, or rankings; I purely run to challenge myself and try to grow facing adversity.

I also still do the occasional Muay Thai sparring round with a coach. Blocked kicks against my unconditioned shin and the odd hits and kicks to the midsection are another effective way to experience pain and learn how to deal with it.

From Sparring to the Real Fight

I think that these conscious “Sparring Rounds” with pain have changed my ability to deal with pain when life forces me to.

For the past five days, I had to deal with a debilitating bout of lower back pain. Some tendon right to the lower end of my spine was swelling up, and within half an hour, a slight feeling of tightness in that region grew into an agonizing pain leaving me barely able to bend down, sit and get up. This was the second time that this has happened over the past half a year, the first time during a gym session, this time during the warm-up.

Don’t get me wrong, with this level of pain; I went straight to a doctor. Luckily there is a small pain clinic in our office building, and besides the usual three-day dose of anti-inflammatories, I also got an ultrasound and UV light therapy. But still, I can only describe the pain as crippling.

However, I subscribe to the old Buddhist mantra “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.” Especially with back pain, it is easy to just give in to the pain, let it take over, drug yourself, and lie down doing nothing. But if the pain is muscular or caused by tendonitis, this approach might make things worse, not better.

I tried to approach the pain as a challenge. Just like the pain I experience during a trail race is not causing me to give up the run, I refused to let this pain stop me from doing what I was planning to do. I accepted that it was there, but did not succumb to it nor threw a raging fit at it.

I went to work (working two days from a standing bar table to avoid sitting); I went for long walks during my lunch hour and went for a 15km hike this Saturday.

I most definitely was not at 100% of my productivity in the office; I didn’t even try to hide that I was in pain, and I felt like an old man, struggling with every step up and down, during the hike. But I went on with life and slowly felt the pain retreating.

Today I am almost pain-free and enjoy the rush of life that you can only feel after overcoming severe pain.

I am not a medical professional, and I am sure there are forms of pain that are so agonizing that they can only be held at bay with severe pain medication.

But I also believe that the human body can take a fair amount of pain and that there are ways how to manage our relationship with pain. Inviting pain for occasional sparring rounds might be one of them.