Suffering is inevitable, so Thich Nhat Hanh wrote a lot about not wasting our suffering, or suffering well:
It is possible of course to get stuck in the “mud” of life. The hardest thing to practice is not allowing yourself to be overwhelmed by despair. When you’re overwhelmed by despair, all you can see is suffering everywhere you look. But we must remember that suffering is a kind of mud that we need in order to generate joy and happiness. Without suffering, there’s no happiness. So we shouldn’t discriminate against the mud. If you know how to make good use of the mud, you can grow beautiful lotuses.
Exactly 100 days ago, while rehabbing multiple 2022 hip surgeries, I injured my back. Wildly painful back spasms put me in the ER that night, and after some steady progress away from not being able to put socks on, my spine has plateaued in the confusing space of “something in my lower right back hurts, quite unpredictably, though more intensely when my chin is tucked or with any kind of hop-like impact, especially running. Not enough to prevent me from moving apartments, but enough to make me avoid gentle hikes, pickleball, and other fun things because I will be experiencing nagging, and at times jolty, pain for the majority of said activity.” Sometimes it recedes almost completely, and sometimes I can’t go a step without feeling its tug, but it’s always sort of there. In fact, it looks like100 days is more than enough to get me into the Chronic Club.
So the last few months have been a frustrating yet fascinating physical and mental see-saw. Sometimes, in a surge of frustration, I want to scream. The fascinating part is that these urges are much less about the pain itself and much more related to the circumstances surrounding the pain and the way I interpret or create narratives about these circumstances. A few examples of powerful thought loops that I’ve found myself accidentally immersed in include:
Blaming myself for not doing my hip rehab the “right way” and rushing my initial recovery process. Or, unhealthy doses of “maybe if you had just XYZ, this wouldn’t have happened.” This is the regretful cause-seeking loop.
Convincing myself that I’ve done some sort of permanent damage to my spine, that this is just how I am now, that I’m that 26-year-old that managed to squander his chance at a long life of movement at an early age. This is the shortsighted, doom-y loop.
Giving too much attention to the specific things I can’t do that others are doing, which can quickly turn a gentle twinge of inadequacy into a gut-wrenching tidal wave. This is the egoic FOMO loop.
None of these are particularly productive to dwell on. Interestingly, the best and worst part about each is that they are mental fabrications—narratives elaborately constructed (and, if I’m not careful, intensified) by yours truly. The not-great part is when I cling to them, they create a very real and felt suffering that makes life way less fun (for me, and especially for those who have to hear the complaining). From these loops can emerge a woe-is-me attitude and anger with my body for not being how I want it to be. But it’s also quite good that these loops are fabricated because 1) with enough awareness, I can choose to see them for what they are and not cling to them 2) I can tell a new story (a more curious and gentle one) in their place 3) they give me a chance to feel strange combinations of emotions that can teach me a lot about how I view and value my different selves (if I let them).
For example, up until the last 18+ months when my hip issues arose, I haven’t really had to confront how strongly I hold “very athletically capable” as a part of the identity that I have constructed for myself in my mind. As someone who is currently not very athletically capable, I’ve had a lot of time to wonder about why I grasp onto it so strongly and why I feel so resistant to accepting that this is not currently the case. Intellectually, it’s not too hard for me to understand that who I am and how I present myself to the world are everchanging for a million different reasons—meaning I shouldn’t fixate on any single one of these aspects. But in practice, it’s hard to let go of something that has so actively shaped how I see myself for so many years. Hard, but worth trying. It’s this very letting go that seems to be essential in navigating the journey back to athletic capability, particularly if I want to find joy and meaning in that journey. Taking the next step in the right direction requires not only acceptance of where I am, but compassion for the person taking that step, and, if I’m lucky, gratitude for the lessons being learned even when I don’t yet know what they are.
This acceptance also opens up new opportunities, not only for how I navigate healing but for how I participate in life while it’s happening. I’ve been dealing with a strange sensation that things are “on pause” until I’m back running, hiking, etc. “Once I’m back to doing those things, then I’ll be able to XYZ” I tell myself, with XYZ being anything from making more friends to setting a fun and challenging goal. But that’s not really how it works—as Sam Harris says, this is not the rehearsal, this is the show. In the case of my hips and spine, I’ve been slow to grasp Sam’s point, but I’m exploring more and more things I can pour a little more energy and attention into instead of just waiting until my back feels healthy again (and who’s to say it’ll stay that way once it is healthy?). Redownloading Serato, doing some more breathwork, and reading novels are a few of these things that I’ve been able to lean into to fill the unsettling void opened up by my chronic pain, and they have brought me joy.
So basically, investigating the nature of the abovementioned thought loops can have pretty great outcomes. There is a degree of freedom—a radical sense of freedom in relation to our existence, one might say—and space created around what previously seemed like a very real story (e.g. I will have back pain forever), and in that space, I can engage with new stories and activities that now have room to flourish. There is also insight—yes, it’s definitely better to not need a certain level of athleticism in order to feel OK, but in recognizing how tightly I hold certain identities, I learn about myself. I learn about what I value, what types of things have shaped me, and whether I’d like to feed or stop feeding them.
I know I will inevitably get trapped in detrimental thought loops again, but I hope not to lose sight of the opportunity to learn from and transform physical and psychological pain as I continue confronting the intricacies of my lumbar spine. I hope to suffer well, or at least suffer better, and I hope that others might do the same on their path.
If you come across any works you believe have helped you accept dealing with long term pain I would appreciate you sharing them. Also, please feel free to reach out if you feel the need to talk with someone about dealing with long term spine issues or ways of coping both physically and mentally.
I’m always in admiration of the lessons learned in your blogs, the patience exhibited and sometimes wanting to just be you! 💜