Pain Free Living

I gave a fireside talk this last week on Necessary and Unnecessary Pain. After the meeting a woman who is going through weekly medical procedures in order to save her life came up to me afterward to thank me. As we talked I asked her how her procedures were going and she told me they were as good as could be expected. Then she went on to explain how much she was bothered by the young technicians at the clinic because they didn’t take their jobs seriously. As she spoke I could see the anger rise into her face. She became animated and intense, fueled by negative emotion. And she kept repeating, “It bothers me so much!” 

I must not have explained Unnecessary Pain well enough or made it clear the benefits that come from dropping self-inflicted pain, because there she was minutes after the discussion filling herself with Unnecessary Pain. But then, it is so easy to see Unnecessary Pain in other people and not so easy to detect it in ourselves. 

Since I’ve learned about Living in Truth asking my Father in Heaven to help me recognize Unnecessary Pain in myself has become an important part of my prayers. So very much of the pain we experience in life is absolutely Unnecessary and the irony is that it can be so easily dropped. The good woman I was talking to has so much to deal with already that to be bothered because the technicians aren’t serious enough about their jobs is absolutely unnecessary. Why should she hurt herself over it?

My prayer is that all of us can better recognize Unnecessary Pain and jettison it rather than wallow in it. Life is so much better without it!