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Fear is more incapacitating than pain. The paradox is that what we fear most is pain.

Guest post by: Malti Bhojwani

Article Overview: Let's say just for the sake of this discussion that there are 2 extremes - Pain and Pleasure. And only 2 life purposes - to have more pleasure and get away from pain. Pain and Pleasure. And the biggest "fear" in life is pain. What if we KNEW that the pain would not be as bad as we fear it will be. Like my experience at the dentist? How freeing would that be? Empowerment!

Fear is more incapacitating than pain. The paradox is that what we fear most is pain.

Fear is more incapacitating than pain. The paradox is that what we fear most is pain.

The Dentists' Chair is a big trigger of fear for me. In fact I have this fear of needles. I used to faint at the sight of them.

Although I don't do that anymore (all the time) thanks to an NLP process, I still do feel the physiological changes happening in my body as soon as confronted with them or the thought of them. What I feel is no different from the expression "blood running cold". It is a physical pain that I feel just under my ribs - just above the stomach. My mouth starts to salivate, and I feel my head getting heavy, my vision is blurred. Anyone who has experienced a "vaso-vagal" or fainted before will know what I am describing. If you haven't then the closest thing I can ask you to imagine is the feeling you have when you are about to do something that you deem very dangerous and scary. Similar to the sensation you feel when you are just about to dive down when sitting at the peak of a roller coaster.

OK....so you get the feeling?

Well, this is how I feel when I am about to take a needle. And this fear of needles is escalated 100 decibels when that needle happens to be with a dentist. (worse than if it were a doctor or nurse)

There is a point to why I am sharing all this with you now....almost there bear with me.

So, my lovely dentist was very kind, and he numbed the gums first with a local ointment before attempting to inject the local anesthesia. He talked to me about my life coaching and facebook to distract me, then he told me to close my eyes and I knew he was about to start. My body went into fear. Absolute fear......and I waited to feel the pain....which by the way never came. I did not feel the injection at all.

The fear is of pain and nothing else, the feeling of fear was very uncomfortable, the pain never came. Now what also kicked in for me was that I had to write about this, so I distracted myself further, wondering what angle I was going to use.

The discussion I want to instigate is this,

Let's say just for the sake of this discussion that there are 2 extremes - Pain and Pleasure.

And only 2 life purposes - to have more pleasure and get away from pain.

Pain and Pleasure.

And the biggest "fear" in life is pain.

What if we KNEW that the pain would not be as bad as we fear it will be. Like my experience at the dentist?

How freeing would that be?

Empowerment!

So my invitation to you is this, know that nothing is that "painful"

Know that you are strong enough to "take" most pain.

Spend more time pursuing pleasure and less time being afraid of pain.

Pain and Pleasure.

The purpose is to have more pleasure and get away from pain.

So we have the "toward- motivation" -

We pursue things that bring us closer to pleasure.

We have the "away-from motivation"

We try to get as far away from anything that causes us pain.

Happiness = having lots of pleasure in our lives

Sadness = life of pain

Our biggest fear is the fear of pain on some level.

The lack of pleasurable things in our life is also pain on some level.

(eg - not being able to sleep on a bed - is "painful". Not being with the one you love, can be painful)

Pain is relative.

It is totally dependent on the individual's pain threshold.

For example, I found childbirth - easy as! I was laughing after, but taking a needle I find terrifying.

So, one man's pain could easily be another man's (or woman's) pleasure. (Well maybe not quite pleasure, but you get what I mean)

They say there is a fine line between pleasure and pain.

Sado-masochist would agree.

Adding hot wasabi or chili to our food is a basic way we add pain and flavour in our lives.

We all need a little bit of pain in fact without pain we would not know pleasure when it hit us on the head.

Life is pretty straight without twisties.

So my invitation to you is this, know that nothing is that "painful"

Know that you are strong enough to "take" most pain.

Spend more time pursuing pleasure and less time being afraid of pain.

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Article Tags: change your neuro paths, control, fear, life coaching, mind over matter, nlp, pain, pleasure



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