Clean pain vs dirty pain

Clean pain vs dirty pain

This is one of my favorite topics because within it are the seeds of taking your power and agency back where you gave it away and not adding to your suffering.

Clean pain is the pain we feel when we lose a job we enjoyed, we’re called to come in for further testing after a biopsy, when a friend moves away, or someone hurts our feelings.

It’s the instinctual, “Ouch, I’m scared, this hurts like a mofo, or what do I do now?”

In Buddhists traditions this is called the first arrow.

These things can’t be avoided.

They’re the “price of admission” for being a human. 

These things need to be sat with, tended to with compassion, and given time and space to move through us.

And move through us they will as long as we’re not suppressing, ignoring, numbing, or denying their normal existence.

But because it’s a part of our brain’s survival strategy to avoid physical and emotional pain at all costs, we do suppress, ignore, numb, and deny the clean pain and first arrow.

This will always lead us to dirty pain and the second arrow.

Dirty pain are the thoughts we add on top of our clean pain.

Thoughts like, “I’ll never find another job I like, I just know it’s going to be cancer and how the hell am I going to get through that, making friends is so hard and I’ll never have another like Keely, or see my spouse doesn’t care about me.”

And when we have “dirty/second arrow” thoughts like that, we’re going to have shitty feelings and wind up showing up for life in a way that sucks and is far from the favorite version of yourself.

Our dirty/second arrow thoughts are often thoughts we were socialized to believe as women or negative assumptions we’ve made about ourselves over the years to try to explain something.

When we have or ruminate in our dirty/second arrow thoughts, it’s like sitting in a dirty diaper, not realizing that we have the choice and power to stand up and take the damn thing off.

We just accept the thoughts swirling through our brains as the truth and like you’re just reporting the weather outside your window.

We have about 65,000 thoughts per day and about 95% of them are subconscious and on autopilot. 

When you believe everything you think, you’re living an unintentional life and merely reacting to what happens.

The alternative is to become aware of your dirty pain thoughts, question them, and decide what to think instead so you can live with intention and create your life instead of just trying to survive another day of whack-a-mole.

This way of being isn’t about toxic positivity. 

It’s exactly the opposite.

It’s about acknowledging the clean pain/first arrow circumstances and feeling them instead of checking out and then sitting in your dirty diaper and reacting to life.

You were socialized to believe “that’s just how life is,” and I call big fat bullshit to that thought!

When you work with your thoughts and emotions, you put yourself in the driver’s seat which is where your ass is meant to be.

This is a hill I will die on and I will not shut up about it. Ever.

I teach my coaching clients how to do this because it’s not rocket science, and just takes micro practices, not a total life overhaul.

I believe in you and I always have your back!