Stopping the Cycle of Pain

"Pain is a primary emotion. It has several emotional by-products which may come from it such as anger, jealousy, depression, hatred, and confusion. The types of emotional by-products we feel depends on whether we turn our pain inward or outward.

Pain turned inward breeds depression and self-blame. We take pain into ourselves making it a part of ourselves. We start believing we are pain incarnate and bring pain to all we touch. We become despondent. It is not so much because we do not see meaning in life; it is more because we simply want the pain stopped yet seem unable to stop it.

When we make pain a part of ourselves and sink into depression, we start living in limits. We look at the world and our environment in terms of what we cannot do, not what we can do. We clutch our pain and limits to ourselves not seeming to realize that by insisting on holding on to our pain and limits, we keep them truly ours. We cannot be free of our pain unless we allow it to leave us.

By clinging to our pain we depower ourselves. We begin to believe we have no other choice but to feel pain. We argue for our limitations thereby adopting them and limiting ourselves...

Pain turned outward breeds emotions such as hate, anger, and jealousy. Anger is simply the cry we make when we push pain away from ourselves. When we turn our pain outward, we look for someone or something to attach blame to. When we do this we may be depowering other people.

Often when we affix blame to another person or become angry with a person, we become caught up with the idea of obtaining justice. Often justice is not enough for us, we want revenge. We not only want to be equal in power to the party we are angry at, we want to be above them so we can make them pay, make them suffer, or make sure they never hurt anyone else like they hurt us. We use techniques that we feel will be successful in depowering others.

When we use depowering techniques, we can expect depowering techniques to be used with us. Depowerment is meant to bring pain. When people feel pain, they will react out of pain and make attempts to depower others to gain their power back.

Becoming involved in depowerment can become a vicious cycle. We are continually in pain because of the revenge effort of those we have tried to depower. Because of the continuing pain, we become more and more intent on easing the pain. Like an animal caught in a trap, we make efforts to move and get away from the pain or make stabs at the attacker believing this will ease or stop the pain. We may end up injuring ourselves worse than if we had just done nothing.

We continue to depower bringing depowerment back to ourselves, never seeing that the very way we deal with our pain is what continues to bring it to us. By concentrating on depowering techniques when we are in pain, we fail to make use of other techniques which would heal the pain. Again, we become so caught up with the pain that we won't let it go so we can heal. The only way that pain will heal is by letting it go; giving up that part of us that wants to continue to feel pain...

Pain is used as an excuse or justification for behavior. If we use pain as our justification for causing pain, then the only character pain builds is negative character. Hurt and hatred do not bring kindness or love.

Somehow we believe that hurting and being hurt are a part of life. We play games with each other and hurt each other because we feel we must to survive in this world. We abandon our ethics, never giving them a chance to see if they work. We limit ourselves by accepting depowerment as the way life must be.

When you start to depower and give pain to others, use your ethics, remember what it was like to feel pain. When people act out of pain and try to depower you, do not assume they are evil. They are acting out of pain. They are acting out of frustrated needs and wants.

Remember, the way to stop their pain so that they won't have to hurt anymore (and so you don't have to get hurt) is by finding the key to meet their needs and set them free from their pain. You may not be able to do it, but it is worth the try. Freedom from pain will never be accomplished by depowerment. To break the power of pain, we must empower."

This article was excerpted from: "Power and Empowerment: The Power Principle" by Lynn Atkinson, Ph.D., published by New Falcon Publications, Tempe, Arizona, USA. http://www.newfalcon.com