The stimulus and story of pain

Consciously, pain is a stimulus.

Suffering is story.

Just like watching our thoughts drift away in meditation, we can watch whatever story our minds create about the pain drift away as well.

This is delicate with chronic pain since the body is so efficient at compensating.

There are times when it serves us to let the story drift and times to level 5 listen to this information in order to prioritize healing.

The difference is acknowledging pain and choosing a response in alignment with our values versus simply ignoring the pain and adding layers of compensation that are difficult to later unravel in the healing process.