When pain is perceived and experienced through the perspective of separation, that is, I am separate from everyone else, ones pain is personal and more than enough to bare. From this perspective pain is inwardly-focused, entangled and intensified by notions of my and mine. No-one out there can understand what I’m going through. My pain is terrible, and worse than yours. Notice the separation – my pain, your pain. Adding to the personal pain mix is what a historical wisdom teacher referred to as first and second arrows of pain or suffering. The first arrow is the situation or condition giving rise to the pain. The second arrow is the person’s reaction to the pain, which typically intensifies their initial pain experience, creating further pain for them.

When pain is perceived and experienced through the perspective of connection or interconnectedness, that is, I am connected to everyone / everything else and the greater whole, ones pain is impersonal, and common to all humanity and living beings. From this perspective pain is still painful. Yet we begin to see that our and everybody’s pain impacts us in some form. What happens to me happens to everybody else, and vice versa. When one person is experiencing pain, all living beings and Life are simultaneously impacted by, and are holding, this pain. This is how the principle of interconnectedness works. Remember, our individual pain is part of our common humanity, and our world’s pain is the individual’s pain too. We can’t escape this. If we try to all we are doing is denying and avoiding this reality.

Our willingness to make this shift in perspective from separation to interconnectedness enables us to open ourselves up to and feel the pain of all living beings, including animals, birds, insects, creatures of the sea and the earth. We don’t really have to do much to experience this. Simply being willing to intentionally and consciously turn toward, acknowledge and feel all forms of pain in the world is how we can begin and continue to do this. If you are experiencing enough pain already, then focus on taking care of yourself first, and allow others to indirectly hold your pain too. Denying, avoiding or distracting ourselves from the world’s pain, through numbing ourselves, pushing pain away, disconnecting from pain or giving too much attention to our own pain, does not miraculously make the world’s pain disappear. Once we can move toward and embrace our collective and individual pain, then we can make our unique and interconnected contribution to sharing and carrying the pain of the world.

After all aren’t we all part of the same planet trying to make a difference to alleviating pain and suffering?

Would you like to make a positive contribution to our individual and collective healing, and to our continuing growth and evolution by being willing to intentionally and consciously turn toward, acknowledge and feel the pain of the world?

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At a recent conference I attended on Contextual Behavioral Science a key term I heard frequently is NOTICING. This is not a new term. Yet it stood out for me. One of the presenters highlighted that we come into the world as ‘noticers’. We have an inbuilt capacity to notice. Noticing is a verb, something we do all the time, whether we are aware of this or not. It’s an internal process natural to all of us, just as natural as the flow of blood through our bodies. For much of our waking time we are not aware of what we are noticing or giving our attention to. Yet we are still engaging this process.

More often we are lost in ‘cognitioning’ or thinking, judging, fantasising, remembering, longing, problem-solving, worrying. We don’t realise this is where our attention is most of the time. Being lost or entangled in thinking is simply that. It is not noticing. Noticing is being aware of the fact that we are engaging in cognitioning, regardless of what this is about. Noticing involves engaging a different dimension. This includes leaving the thinking mind, or at least trying to create some space between the thinking mind and oneself as the noticing dimension to enable this process to unfold.

The process of noticing includes the whole body. It’s an embodied experience. Our whole being, mind, heart and every other part of the body are inherent in the noticing dimension. It is infused with consciousness and the dynamic energy of the heart, mind and body. We bring our whole being into the process of noticing, moment by moment. It is a fully embodied practice. Noticing is essential to being fully human and alive. It’s important to know that this noticing dimension is not a thing or object. It’s unlike an organ in the body that has a particular physical location.

When we begin noticing our experiences from this dimension we see our experiences for what they are – experiences, including thoughts, images, memories, feelings, emotions, sensations. These experiences are not who we are as human beings. When we use language the process of noticing is the ‘I am’ part of a statement. For example, in the statement I am sad the I am is noticing an experience of sadness, which will arise for some time and eventually dissipate. The simplest way to begin engaging in the process of noticing is to acknowledge and name what you are noticing. For instance, I am noticing a thought, I am noticing a feeling, I am noticing a sensation. Each of these is unfolding behind our skin. You can also noticing experiences outside of your skin. for instance, I am noticing the cars on the street, I am noticing the sounds of birds.

Within and through this process and practice of noticing lie the seeds of acknowledging, allowing and accepting what is, moving us toward being kind, gentle and compassionate with ourselves and others. The practice of noticing enables us to really see what’s there, providing an opportunity for us to make an intentional choice about how to engage with what arises in a fully embodied manner.

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I hope you find it informative and helpful.

If you would like to provide any feedback I would appreciate this.

Charles Thermos

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