The term “pain teacher” is one that I came across from listening to Paul Chek’s incredible podcasts. If you haven’t heard of him yet, then you’re late to the party and you need to get on it because Paul has a vast amount of solid and practical knowledge on all aspects of health and fitness. I highly recommend his book, How to Eat, Move and be Healthy to anyone interested in living a healthier life, which I think it is one of the best overall books on general health and wellness. Here is a link to part 1 of his “Lesson from the Pain Teacher” episode of his podcast here.

Ever since I heard that term I started to think of pain as just that, a teacher, and it has been an incredibly useful way to look at pain. Life is all about perspective. Knowing that simple yet powerful fact can enable us to utilize pain as a tool for growth, a necessary force that nudges us along the right path instead of viewing it as a terrible and oppressive force that victimizes us. We can change our relationship with pain and suffering, and thus change the trajectory of our lives.

From an evolutionary perspective the idea of pain being a teacher is completely logical. You do something and it hurts, the pain and suffering involved in making a poor decision is the way that nature communicates to you that whatever it was that you did is a threat to your survival. It’s a simple and straightforward concept that keeps us from doing stupid things, at least most of the time.

If there was no pain and suffering, then we as the human race would have never gotten this far, and we’d all be severely messed up. Pain inspires change, and change leads to evolution, and promotes the betterment of your wellbeing when it’s used in a constructive way.

Not only are pain and suffering a necessary and essential element of life, but the best experiences in life take place from overcoming pain and suffering. When we look at the lives of the people we admire, we commend them not for an easy life, but for their achievement of success despite of the pain and suffering they were faced with and by how they overcame challenge and most importantly, that they did not let suffering stop them from doing incredible things.

We shouldn’t be looking to avoid pain. We shouldn’t be exclusively chasing the highs of life. Face the lows and fix the problems and the joy and pleasure you want will come to you as a result of overcoming challenges. No one can successfully navigate through life avoiding pain, so don’t attempt to skirt it because often all that avoidance does is lead to prolonging the problem and thus prolonging the amount of time you spend experiencing that particular suffering. The longer you avoid it, the more time it has to propagate.

Be the buffalo. Run towards the storm and get it over with and don’t be so absorbed in the suffering that you miss the lesson involved. The suffering isn’t what’s important and many times we can get so wrapped around the feelings of discomfort and pain that we miss what’s really important, that is, what we were supposed to learn from the problem and be wise enough to not do it again.

“It is through the pain of confronting and resolving problems that we learn. As Benjamin Franklin said, ” Those things that hurt, instruct.” It is for this reason that wise people learn not to dread but actually welcome problems and actually welcome the pain of problems. -M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled

Peck, one of my favorite authors and a brilliant psychiatrist, firmly believed that the avoidance of pain and suffering is the primary basis for all human mental illness. Reading his words was a breath of fresh air in a world where many psychiatrists like to reduce the oldest of human problems to a diagnosis, a label, or to validate a patient’s poor behavior and prescribe pills. Most of the solutions to our problems boil down to quit avoiding the suffering and take the time to fix the problem.

The question is: Will you be a wise student of life and listen to the pain teacher and fix the problem, grow from it and move on, or will you avoid it and hope it magically disappears and allow your mental health to deteriorate and refuse to grow as a person?

Your character is really all you have, and the way you deal with problems and the pain that comes with those problems says volumes about your character. It turns out that my father was right, and suffering is good for your character if you have the courage to face it honorably and don’t attempt to hide from it. He used to make me do loads of chores, sand the entire house so that we could paint, paint it and then tell me to meet him outside to work on the family car. He’d say it build character, and it did.

I was forced to delay the gratification of hanging out with my friends or playing outside and having to do it then as a kid when it was the last thing that I wanted to do made it easier for me to do those kinds of things now as an adult when I don’t want to do it because I’ve already experienced that suffering and it doesn’t faze me as much anymore. My father taught me that dealing with the problem now means that life can be better later.

My dad would say the same thing when I’d accidentally hurt myself or when we’d be camping, and I’d be suffering from the heat or cold and uncomfortable and dirty. He was right because I learned how to suffer, and I learned its usually only as bad as you make it. He used to make me wrestle him and get tied into knots or workout with him until my arms felt like noodles, and now things that would make an average person suffer is a walk in the park for me.

Sometimes getting hurt doesn’t seem to have any lesson in it, but more often than not its usually don’t do that stupid thing again. However, those experiences can also teach you to suffer with honor and build some emotional, mental and physical resiliency that makes the inevitable pain you will face later in life a lighter cross to bear.

Pain is your teacher, a strict but effective teacher if you are wise enough to find the way to grow from the experiences that cause you to suffer. I said earlier that life is all about perspective, but that’s not necessarily accurate. Life is really all about growth and your perspective is how you use the pain to promote that growth. How did you change from your time on this earth? Did the pain and suffering help mold a better person, or did you miss the lessons and let it break you down?