Free

Free

We long to be ‘pain-free’. Because physical pain is somehow the exact opposite of physical freedom, it places terrible limitations on the variety, quality, and vibrancy of the life we are able to lead.

Living with chronic pain can feel like being ‘trapped‘. Not by bars or restraints but by invisible, internal knots and blockages. Knots and blockages that can seldom be seen, felt, or fully understood by others. 

Chronic pain sufferers tend to look like everyone else from the other side of the room. But when you really take the time to hear their stories and listen to what their lives are like, a very different picture emerges. 

On the day of writing this, I spent two nearly identical hours with two different ladies, who are both less than 35 years of age. Both appear perfectly healthy and cheerful when you first shake their hands and engage them in some small talk. Yet in both cases, the description of their day-to-day quality of life is very distressing to hear. 

Severed and strained relationships, clinical depression, faltering career paths, loss of confidence, inability to exercise, weight gain, broken sleep, severely constricted social lives, and substantial fear and uncertainty about pain. Factors that all too often lead to very real and very understandable mental health struggles. 

All of which is just normal for people with chronic pain, and depressingly normal for both of these ladies (both of whom have been like this for years, despite strenuous attempts to find a solution), And they are far, far, far from alone in their struggles. There are millions of people like them. Mostly suffering in virtual silence. 

For the worst sufferers, chronic pain becomes something like a biological prison. It constrains the full expression of our life force. 

‘Limitation‘,  ‘restriction’, ‘imprisonment’, ‘constraint’ ‘entrapment’ are all symbolic feelings we have about pain. And as feelings, they speak to the type of suffering pain triggers at the deepest levels of our psyche. Pain triggers some of our deepest, rawest, most ancient forms of suffering, like loss of freedom and loss of connection.

All of our physical connections and physical freedoms are underpinned by the ability to move without inhibition. 

All pain hurts physically, but persistent pains hurt us even more because of their impact on our basic physical freedoms, many of which spill over into another pillar of happiness—the ability to connect with others. Therefore,  chronic pain is limiting, but it can also be isolating.

Choose any topic that’s ever held your attention in any way, shape or form. It will almost certainly boil down to connection or freedom, or both! Connection & freedom are 2 of our most fundamental human instincts. Probably because for social hunter-gatherers, freedom to move and connection tend to equate to survival. Being physically trapped and/or separated from the tribe is not good. 

All our instincts for accomplishment, achievement, qualifications, career, excellence, financial success, creativity, travel, sport, health, fitness, well-being, conflict and survival represent freedom in one form or another. 

The exhilaration of reaching the goal, making the sale, passing the test, building the masterpiece, winning the race, overcoming the challenge, getting the promotion and receiving the bonus: owe their feel-good factor to a glorious inner sense of freedom. Freedom drives so much of what we do. 

And then there is a connection with others. 

Many of life’s deepest cravings are, at their core, cravings for connection. All the love, acceptance, approval, appreciation, praise, support, sharing, rewarding, caring, cooperation, charity, service, giving, community, pets, family, friends, and kids all represent connection in one form or another. 

When we give and receive, when we care, when we share time and socialise, when we serve, when we collaborate, and when we love, it all boils down to expressing our instinct to connect. It’s an impulse that’s deeply encoded into our social DNA.

Like our desires, our deepest fears often lay bare our most powerful instincts. Hence,  isolation and physical restraint are among our most fundamental human fears. And combining the two is, for most of us, a totally horrifying prospect.

Free - Solitary confinement

Being isolated and alone means no connection. Being trapped, enclosed or restrained means no freedom. Thus combining them makes for one of the worst experiences imaginable. This is why human societies have concluded that prison is such a logical punishment. And it is also why solitary confinement is widely considered the very worst form of human torture.

In a study published by the American Public Health Association, they concluded that acts of self-harm were strongly associated with the assignment of inmates to solitary confinement. Inmates punished by solitary confinement were approximately 6.9 times as likely to commit acts of self-harm, even after controlling the length of jail stay, mental illness, and ethnicity.

No matter how bad prison community life gets (which is often indescribably bad), solitary is almost always far worse. Most humans will beg to be allowed back to the threat of rape and violence in the general prison population, even after very short periods of solitary. And countless humans have chosen to take their own life rather than face extended solitary because they were deprived of their instincts to express freedom and connection.

It would be a mistake to think this is straying off the pain topic. We are deep in the truth about stubborn pain. Because chronic pain touches exactly the same human rawness that solitary confinement does, it just goes about it in a very different way. 

Imprisonment creates external constraint and disconnection, while pain creates internal constraint and disconnection.

Deep within the human psyche, persistent pain is like imprisonment; it limits our physical freedom – but instead of bars, there is a loss of mobility and deep shards of pain. And instead of physical isolation, pain is an invisible veil that disconnects and alienates us from those around us. Others can’t see it or feel it, and many cannot understand it. It also prevents us from full participation in life – which, for many, makes life feel lonely.

Being isolated and alone means no connection. Being trapped, enclosed or restrained means no freedom. Thus combining them makes for one of the worst experiences imaginable. This is why human societies have concluded that prison is such a logical punishment. And it is also why solitary confinement is widely considered the very worst form of human torture.

In a study published by the American Public Health Association, they concluded that acts of self-harm were strongly associated with the assignment of inmates to solitary confinement. Inmates punished by solitary confinement were approximately 6.9 times as likely to commit acts of self-harm, even after controlling the length of jail stay, mental illness, and ethnicity.

No matter how bad prison community life gets (which is often indescribably bad), solitary is almost always far worse. Most humans will beg to be allowed back to the threat of rape and violence in the general prison population, even after very short periods of solitary. And countless humans have chosen to take their own life rather than face extended solitary because they were deprived of their instincts to express freedom and connection.

It would be a mistake to think this is straying off the pain topic. We are deep in the truth about stubborn pain. Because chronic pain touches exactly the same human rawness that solitary confinement does, it just goes about it in a very different way. 

Imprisonment creates external constraint and disconnection, while pain creates internal constraint and disconnection.

Deep within the human psyche, persistent pain is like imprisonment; it limits our physical freedom – but instead of bars, there is a loss of mobility and deep shards of pain. And instead of physical isolation, pain is an invisible veil that disconnects and alienates us from those around us. Others can’t see it or feel it, and many cannot understand it. It also prevents us from full participation in life – which, for many, makes life feel lonely.

If your pain isn’t severe, these truths may only apply to you in a small way, like being unable to play golf with your friends (Sunday morning limitation & isolation). But for people with the worst pain, the loss of freedom and disconnection can be very severe and extremely isolating. And the worse our pain gets, the more like imprisonment or even solitary confinement it becomes. 

The sweetest freedoms are the simplest ones, and they are also the ones pain threatens most. 

Being able to cuddle someone without it feeling like there are pieces of sharp metal between you. Being able to rise from a chair easily. Being able to fall into a deep comfortable sleep when we’re tired. Feeling physically good enough to enjoy the company of others. Standing and walking comfortably. Being able to exercise comfortably. Being able to pick up a child. Playing with a child. Being able to concentrate at work without pain. Making love to someone we have chosen to spend our life with. These are the sweetest freedoms that make 99% of a happy life if we let them. And they reveal themselves so clearly to those with the most pain.

At its most fundamental level, pain is a loss of these freedoms. Therefore, we wish to be set free from our pain. In the same way, an inmate is set free at the end of their sentence.

Being pain-free is being free from constraint-free from disconnection and isolation –  free from frustration-free from stiffness – free from physical limitations – free from uncertainty – free from sleeplessness –  free from embarrassment – free from feeling trapped by a body that isn’t comfortably expressing the most normal and basic functions.

And the flip side of all this rawness is how good it feels to be free of our pain. How much happier we are when we are able to re-comment and re-mobilise.There is no sweeter feeling than the ‘release’ and ‘relief’ of getting better. No matter what kind of health challenges we face.

I’ve never told anyone this in person for some reason, but I can clearly remember the exact moment I knew I was cancer free.

It was 2010, and I was living in an idyllic but very small blue boat shed that I was renting from a friend in Pauahatanui, NZ. It was early morning, and I was stirring from a very deep sleep. It was one of those mornings when half woke, I was not sure where I was.

My eyes were adjusting to the room, trying to figure out where I had woken up. Then I suddenly realised what was different, and it wasn’t the location. I’d slept through a whole night without waking drenched in pain or sweat. I’d had a deep, full, restful sleep for the first time in 3 years. And I knew exactly what that meant. I could feel with absolute certainty there was no cancer in my body. 

We talk about ‘floods’ of emotion for a reason. The healing we have craved over the years can feel like a dam bursting when it finally comes, and that’s exactly what that moment was like for me. I’m re-feeling some of the emotional relief as I type this more than ten years on. I am still relieved. I still feel set free from that sickness and the physical suffering that came with it.

Finally, feeling better after sickness or pain is one of the best feelings in the world. It’s a release that stands in absolute contrast to the feelings of limitation and disconnection. Most of us feel a piece of that euphoria even after a short bout of food poisoning, let alone when we have struggled with pain or sickness for years at a time.

A month later, my doctors told me officially that after three years of biopsies, every alternative therapy under the sun, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, more chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants, my cancer had finally relented. It felt like a formality because I already knew I was better. 

If you are genuinely 100% done with your pain, and you put a ¼  of the energy into it that I put into healing my cancer – you’ll probably love where you end up. The freedom and reconnection of a pain-free life are almost certainly a possibility for you.

You’ll get to take a breath. Life will feel so sweet, and you’ll feel so happy and grateful just to be alive. The effort was all so worth it. Calm seas and a gentle breeze. Freedom.

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