President's Message - Pain is OK!
October 2003

We all know someone (perhaps it is ourselves) who would like to get from point A to point B, but never gets there because between point A and point B there is potential pain. By pain, I mean swallowing one's pride (that's painful!), or risking rejection (that's painful!), or giving up bad habits, risking failure, admitting we are wrong, saying we're sorry, risking embarrassment, forcing ourselves to be diligent and disciplined, facing ourselves, repenting from wrongdoing, asking directions, getting back up when we fall down, or trying again and again (all painful!).

We all tend to avoid pain-even when we know that it might be for our own good. We all have known someone who has physical symptoms that might indicate a serious physical problem, but who refuse to see a doctor for fear of what they might learn. Ridiculous!?! You bet! Avoidance of pain was given to all species of living creatures so that they would survive. To be eaten alive or even bitten by a predator would be extremely painful, so most animals will try to avoid the experience. When a deer flees a pursuing lion it is not the loss of blood the animal fears, should the lion catch it. It is the fear of pain that stimulates adrenaline and induces flight. If a species could not feel pain, they would not try to avoid it and the result would be disastrous for the entire species.

Avoidance of pain is a survival mechanism, without it we would not live very long. But sometimes it backfires on us! Because, unlike other animals, besides physical pain man can feel emotional pain, and we tend to avoid emotional pain to the same degree as we do physical pain. And unfortunately, there are a ton of things that can cause us emotional pain, and that is where it gets tricky!

Sometimes going through pain will not cause our destruction at all, but may be essential for our survival. Take for instance Aron Ralston from Grand Junction, Colorado. We all watched the news last May with astonishment as his story unfolded. He had gone hiking in a remote canyon in Utah for the weekend. A huge boulder weighing close to 1,000 pounds fell on his arm, and held him trapped for five days. After three days of being stuck and after having run out of water and after having eaten the last few crumbs in a candy bar wrapper, he decided to amputate his right arm. But he made little progress. He started sawing back and forth with his pocketknife to no avail. The knife was so dull that he could not even cut the hair on his arm.

Two days later he realized he had to do something while he was still coherent. "It was the last opportunity I would have and still have the physical strength to get out," he said. "It occurred to me I could break my bones." First the radius snapped just above his wrist. He kept twisting his arm and a few minutes later the ulna broke. The whole process, including setting out bandages and first aid supplies took about an hour.

He applied a tourniquet, cut off his lower arm, rappelled down a 20-meter cliff and hiked 10 kilometers through a national park in Utah. "I'm not sure how I handled it," he said. "I felt pain. I coped with it. I moved on." With the makeshift bandage and tourniquet, he still had to crawl along a 45-meter canyon. He then rappelled, one-armed, down the rock face. After hiking for hours, he met a Dutch family who went for medical attention.

In Aron's case, going through pain is what he had to do to survive. Recently, Aron explained, "A lot of people think of it in terms of, 'I would never be able to put a blade to my own skin.' But having gone to the depths of coming to accept I could very well die there, and then seeing the light of being able to get out, it didn't even occur to me to dwell on the painful side of the experience."

We could all learn a lot from Aron's experience. The truth is we all could do what Aron did. The question is would we decide to do it? Aron realized that pain should not be a deterrent to getting himself off of the mountain and getting on with his life. He did not let pain stop him! In other words, he realized that pain is OK! Many people are currently in situations quite similar to Aron Ralston's, but they just don't realize it. They want things to be better than they are, but in order to get to where they want to be they will have to go through some pain. What they don't realize is pain is OK!

I am always surprised at how quickly some people give up and quit when they experience a little pain. We all have known men and women who have suffered painful romantic experiences and because they never want to go through that again, they commit to themselves never to remarry or go on another date! And therefore they will never experience the joy that a happy marriage would bring them.

Often people are too prideful to say "I'm sorry," even when they know it would open the door for both them and their loved ones to heal. They don't do it because swallowing their pride and admitting they were wrong or saying "I'm sorry" would be too painful!

Many never try to succeed in realizing their dreams because of fear of failure or fear of rejection. In their minds they have convinced themselves that being told "no" would be more painful than never to have asked. And therefore at the end of their lives they find themselves still in the canyon with the boulder continuing to hold them fast.

I have learned that nothing great in life ever comes without risking and experiencing some pain. If we could only remember that "pain is OK!" We need to learn to cope with it and move on.

As you look at what goals you have in life and where you want to get to compared with where you are today, ask yourself what is preventing you from going there? What painful experiences are you avoiding? What is holding you fast in the canyon you find yourself in? Is it bad habits? Is it fear of failure or fear of rejection? Is it pride? The greatest cause of human failure and the greatest reason many people never reach their dreams is their propensity to avoid emotional pain.

We must understand that what ever it is that is holding us back, we each have within us what Aron Ralston had. We can decide to face it head on, to "cope with it and move on." And we can learn what he learned-pain really is OK. And when we face it and decide to go through it, it can open up a wonderful life before us.

Sincerely,

Frank