I just figured out my biggest hidden fear (Powerful)

[kag101]

"The surest way to go to hell is by running away from it."  —Garbor Maté

Here's my realization: I have a phobia of feeling pain. I have come up with the term "painphobia".

Every time I have some discomfort in my body, I can't let go of it and my monkey mind goes wild:"What if this becomes chronic? What if it gets worse? What if it is something more serious? What if there's something fundamentally wrong with me?"

Thing is, virtually always, it's something temporary. Or at least, it's not so bad.

 

Here are my insights on how to overcome it:

Insight 1: Simply becoming aware of this tendency.

The moment you name the dragon, it begins to lose its power. Leo has a very good episode on this (awareness is curative)

Insight 2: By being so aversed to pain and trying to suppress all discomfort, this paradoxically creates more pain.

A going full-circle kinda thing.

Insight 3: Refrain from brute forcing my way out of it

"Fuck you, stupid fear. I will expose myself to pain as much as possible, and I will overcome this shit no matter what. I'm sick of it!" >> I've tried this in the past, and not only is it useless but it ends up amplifying the problem. Repression creates obsession.

 

Solution: By noticing over and over again that those fears are pure illusion, I gradually start to overcome this phobia.

 

Example:

"OMG! My right shoulder is aching. It must be tendinitis. This will go on forever, and I will never be able to play the piano again without pain. Ohhhh... wait a second! Painphobia is present! Let's observe how this pain will be in 3 days."

3 days later... >> I have either found a solution or the pain went away on its own.

Note: The mind is very tricky. If I don't consciously pay close attention to the pain, when it does go away, I will forget that I had it. 

 

Conclusion: By going through this gentle process of observation over and over again and realizing that I was overreacting, the next time a wave of painphobia comes up; it will be less and less intense.

[Oliver Saavedra]

Nice! its so good you realized this mechanism in you

Remember your body, emotions, and mind learn together, they are a connected system

As you described it, seems like your body usually gets a painful sensation and your emotions over-react with fear, and then your mind starts tripping about the worse

This is probably a unconsciously learnt mechanism that became automathic in you

Your strategies seem just right, first becoming super aware of how this mechanism work in your body, emotioms, and mind 

Teach your body to relax, teach your emotions to embrace pain, cry through it if necessary, to surrender to pain instead of resisting/holding it, because that's what makes your mind try to rationalize pain.

Really focus on the sensation while surrendering to it. 

 

Example:

1. Body: feels pain 

2. Emotions: FEAR

3. Mind: Avoid fear! Overthink! maybe the pain is this or that or this or that

4. Body: Stop and feel the pain, focus on sensation and surrender to it

5. Emotions: embrace and feel the fear, focus on sensation and surrender to it

6. Mind: I'm not needed here, let go of thoughts

1, 2 and 3 is the automathic mechanism

4, 5 and 6 are the new mechanism you could install to relax the old one

Much Love ❤️

[kag101]

@Oliver Saavedra

Yeap, it was a very powerful insight. 

Thing is, most of the times, it's not even a painful pain (lol). It's just some minor discomfort. Then I get fearful about whether it will evolve to be a serious or maybe chronic thing... 

And I'd say that what helps the most, in my case, is to do the opposite of focusing on the sensation. I try to distract myself as much as possible so that I forget about the discomfort. This helps to break my fixation on it. Does that make sense?