Yes, I've titled this post with the snappy lyrics from Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock's anthem, "Joy and Pain." It's a terrible song, but it reminds me of how pain is typically viewed in our western culture. Pain, both physical and emotional, is often seen as being problematic, debilitating, and all-consuming. The relationship between joy and pain is consequently perceived to be binary; they are in direct opposition to one another. I realized this week that, even after reading The Book of Joy, I have been thoroughly buying in to this perception and it has been influencing my effort to live in alignment with significance.
I'm interested in pain because I experience a lot of it. As I've mentioned before, I have Crohn's disease, which causes pain in my gut but also associated inflammatory pain in lots of other places. I get migraines and I have a lot of joint and muscle issues; I was in the midst of trying to get this diagnosed when we left Alberta (the latest thought from my docs was that it was rheumatoid arthritis because auto immune disorders tend to come in pairs). However, I lost steam with this effort, mostly because I realized that a diagnosis doesn't really matter in terms of how I manage pain; the diagnosis becomes almost incidental. What I know for sure is that I have a low-grade hum of pain pretty much all the time, which gets better or worse depending on what I've eaten, how much stress I'm under, and what I've done physically on any given day. I can't remember the last time that I was pain free, and the first thing that flits across my groggy brain every morning is an assessment of what bits hurt the most. This is often referred to as chronic pain, or pain that is persistent and has an impact on life and work activities (Dahlhamer et al., 2018).
When I read The Book of Joy, I wrestled a bit with the assertion that people might be able to experience both joy and pain, sometimes even simultaneously. I understood it cognitively, but I didn't think it could apply to me. It only sunk in this past weekend after I had spent two days in yoga teacher training, where most of our time was spent doing long holds of dozens of yoga poses. By Sunday night I was very sore. I felt like I had been hit by a truck. This had an impact on my sleep, and by Monday morning I was sure that every single part of me hurt. I had a migraine and I felt like someone was sandpapering all the muscles in my body simultaneously. I felt like a giant black bruise. Despite having slept eight hours I had no idea how I was going to drag myself out of bed. My first thought after my assessment of this pain was that the day was going to be a total write-off, which immediately activated a stress response because I had a few really important tasks to get done.
Serendipity stepped in, though, when several power poles in my area were damaged and the internet went down indefinitely. Woohoo! Even if I could do the tasks on my to-do list, I couldn't send them off without the internet. As I sat back on a bed of pillows to read my book instead, I felt profoundly relieved that the universe had granted me a little respite. I realized that this felt strange. I recognized, suddenly, that I would usually feel guilt or anxiety or frustration when pain was effecting my performance. This time I felt... joy? Weird.
Here's the thing. I was still in a lot of pain -- migraine (check), sandpaper (check), bruised feeling (check), fatigue (check). But I also felt joyful. I felt enormous gratitude for my comfy couch and my pillows and my very good novel. I actually felt my heart soften when my husband and kids just took over all the stuff I would normally do and my dog snuggled up to nap beside me. I sat, for a long while, in quiet joy. I think it felt so strange because I'd done a lot of research about pain management. I'd tried meditating on the pain, drowning the pain with anti-inflammatory medicines, pushing through the pain, and many more strategies. I had no idea that experiencing joy while in pain would be so easy. I mean, it didn't last forever but holy smokes it felt good. This was a bit of an epiphany. I can have pain and have joy too.
My next step, I think, is to notice when I'm fixating on pain and try to move that to a different place. I might not always get to a place of joy, but I feel more optimistic about this approach to managing pain than all the others.
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