Strength Through Pain
When a person is growing, there are numerous events that they will go through. Some will bring happy memories that they will love, whilst some will bring sad, terrible, painful memories. Even though these painful memories will be hated because of the pain that is associated with them, they are truly needed. A life lived with only happiness will not reap the same result as that lived with constant pain. This is because, one cannot successfully become stronger without experiencing some form of pain.
There are numerous sayings, such as; “No pain, no gain”, “We only learn things the hard way”, and “From adversary comes strength”, that support this ideology. These sayings tie to a phenomenon known as post traumatic growth. Post traumatic growth was originally coined by psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun. Calhoun and Tedeschi interviewed numerous people that had gone through life changing events such as bereavement, housefires, serious illness, and becoming refugees. The interviews showed that by experiencing these horrific events, people gained what Tedeschi and Calhoun called “Positive life changes”. The people who were surveyed discovered skills they never knew they possessed, gained a new inner strength, and among other things became appreciative of life.
Another psychologist named Judith Neal, did a study with 40 people who went through post traumatic growth. Most of them stated that they initially had experienced “a dark night of the soul” where their values were questioned and life seemed to have no meaning. This caused them to go through a phase of spiritual searching where they tried to understand what they went through and find new values. Then they went through a stage that Neal called spiritual integration. In this stage they applied the new principles to their life and found a gratitude for being alive and for experiencing such an event. For the people that Neal surveyed it can be concluded that suffering had brought them to a new and stronger place in life. The surveyed people may have lost everything physically and internally (based on the questioning of the principles), but among their newly gained principles, they had also gained a new mental strength to face such traumatic events and persevere through them.
From a physical perspective, pain also makes a person stronger. This is most evident in cases such as that of the Shaolin monks. These monks are notorious for their practices that involve striking others with steel poles, receiving numerous kick to the groin, and essentially inflicting pain upon oneself. The monks conduct these activities because they believe that it strengthens the body part that is being hit, and scientifically they are right. Gradually the pain that is being inflicted gets stronger and stronger. Once a person’s body gets used to one level of pain the next level is brought. This process takes numerous years to occur and has resulted in monks being able to do things such as bending steel with their necks and being able to withstand a hit to the groin as if nothing has happened. This just goes to show of how pain can strengthen people.
Normally when someone hears the word pain, negative thoughts are the only ones that seem to arise. People fail to note that pain, and negativity in general, can bring strength. Traumatic events can cause one to reach new levels that they have never presumed possible. The process may not seem easy and may not be fun, but the rewards that will be reaped will be great.
Leknes, Siri, and Brock Bastian. "The Benefits of Pain." SpringerLink. Springer Netherlands, 01 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 May 2017.
Taylor, Steve. "Can Suffering Make Us Stronger?" Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 04 Nov. 2011. Web. 13 May 2017.
"The iron crotch exercise (铁裆功)." Braineggs. N.p., 10 Apr. 2016. Web. 13 May 2017.
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