Reactions are Everything Contemplation

I learned a lot about pain this weekend - physical pain. Don't get me wrong, I have been in pain many times before, but this time I paid a lot of attention to how it made me want to react towards others. Though it was a trivial type of pain, blisters on my toes thanks to new inserts I put in my boots, my feet felt like pins were being jabbed into me with every step. My patience lessened, as did my inner charity towards others. I spent a great deal of time keeping my outer perception calm and not letting my pain be the cause of injury to someone else. That takes so much energy. So, I could not help but think about the people who live with chronic pain on a daily basis. It is one thing to theorize about their pain, but when you have something that causes you great discomfort, you begin to understand the ramifications of managing pain. Life does become so much harder. It permeates everything.

Short of a hypnosis session or two or whatever your pain release pleasure may be, I am not sure a weekly contemplation is going to ebb much of the pain. But, pain or not, how we react to others is very important. We can spread our pain just through attitude or we can chose to work on manging it, not spreading it and perhaps we will find some of it does dissipate, as nothing will be compounded on top of it.

So, for this week's contemplation:

My reactions are my own. I have the strength and the power to control them. When I do this well, I am a better person.