Pain is a gift. Suffering is a prison.

Unlock the key and break free

A scene from Lady Bird

Last night, Ari and I went to a local spot to grab Thai food for dinner. She’s my best friend on the island and also my next-door neighbor. She came over to my house because she was on her period and craving comfort food, and I didn’t want to cook because I was feeling depressed.

She ordered an egg salad, and I ordered a seafood salad. On the island, it’s a running joke that tourists can’t handle “Thai spicy”, so waiters often ask what spice level you can manage. A Dutch friend once told me that instead of saying "little spicy," you can say "baby spicy." It’s cuter, and the waiters usually laugh when you say it.

On my first bite, I crunched down on a Thai pepper, and my mouth was instantly on fire—a stinging, inescapable, red-hot pain. To cool it down, I gulped my watermelon shake, finding moments of reprieve in every slurp.

But as soon as I stopped drinking, the burn returned, more intense each time. The ice cooled me down, only for the fire to come back stronger.

Ari watched this cycle in agony and did what all good friends do when they see someone they love suffering: she tried to fix it.

"Ask them for a new dish. They made it too spicy," she insisted, clearly aching for me.

"No, no, it’s okay. I don’t think it’s that spicy. I just bit into a pepper," I replied, my mouth still stinging.

Eventually, I stopped drinking my shake and remembered an old lesson from my time living with Buddhist monks. I closed my eyes and focused all my attention on the burning sensation in my mouth. I felt it all. The harsh pain shattered across my skin. It radiated through my body like fire ripping through a forest.

A minute later, the pain was gone. Well, not entirely gone, but it had been significantly subdued. I finished the rest of the seafood salad without feeling like I was swallowing hot coals.

Ari looked at me, surprised. "It doesn’t hurt anymore?"

"The monks taught me that if you focus all your attention on the sensation, you can lessen your suffering," I explained.

Intrigued, Ari decided to try it for her period cramps. She closed her eyes and focused on the pain. Her face scrunched with discomfort, and slowly, tears trickled down her cheeks. When she opened her eyes again, I asked, "How do you feel?"

"Better," she sighed, and we continued eating our delicious dinner.

While volunteering at the Punya Panya Meditation Center, an all-female Buddhist monastery outside Bangkok, I followed a strict daily schedule: waking up at 5 a.m., doing an hour of chores, eating breakfast, chanting, meditating, working for two hours, eating lunch, taking a break, and ending the day with more chanting and meditation.

One of the grossest tasks during work hours was collecting dead fish from the lake and dumping them into a large barrel of fermenting fish and vegetables. This brew was used to balance the lake’s pH.

I can confidently say it was the most horrific thing I had ever smelled. It was the first time a smell made me physically run away. You could insta-puke from it.

However by the end of my two weeks there, I no longer hated the smell. I even sort of liked it—not because I "got used to it," but because of a lesson the monks taught me.

During a Dharma talk, the head monk, Anya, introduced us to mindfulness. She guided us through an exercise where every action had to match our words. For example, if we lifted our hand, we had to say, "lifting, lifting, lifting."

The goal was for the mind to align with the body.

Easy enough right?

Nope! Many of us would move our hands before saying "lifting" or say "lifting" while our hands stayed still. Even if the delay only lasted a few seconds, if a task as simple as lifting my hand was a struggle to do mindfully, imagine how difficult it is to mindfully cook a meal, drive a car, or even listen in a conversation.

Anya encouraged us to apply this lesson of mindfulness to each action we did, and see how it impacted our energy throughout the weeks. Despite the regimented schedule and mundane tasks, I was brimming with energy. When my thoughts aligned with my actions and my perception matched my sensations, I was fully in the moment.

It wasn’t easy. I hated washing dishes. My mind would wander, seeking escape from the boredom, thinking about the past or future. Boredom is painful, so our minds naturally try to avoid it. But, when I brought my attention back to “washing, washing, washing” suddenly, a task that felt like it lasted forever only lasted a few minutes.

The same applied to dumping dead fish. I focused entirely on the rotting smell: "smelling, smelling, smelling." At first, the smell was extremely intense and all-consuming. But it only lasted a few moments before it dissipated, and I was one with the sensation.

Mindfulness is the key to relieving suffering—or rather, pain is. Pain is temporary, ephemeral, and intense. Suffering occurs when we delay feeling pain when we delay feeling of pain by either escaping it, avoiding it, or taking short-cuts to make it smaller. By focusing all our attention on the sensation, we diminish suffering by accepting pain for what it is.

That’s why with every sip of my watermelon shake, the burn came back ten times stronger.

I’ve been trapped in a cycle of suffering for the past few months. You may not have known based on how I present myself online but, it’s true. My mental health has been, well, bad.

I’ve been afraid of being honest about it cause I was tired of my blog sounding like a downer. I also didn’t want to burden others with the knowledge that someone they love is in pain. But recently, I was reminded again that when we don’t pay attention to our pain, we only prolong it.

One of my favorite quotes about attention comes from Lady Bird. In the movie, Sister Sarah Joan, a nun, gives feedback on Lady Bird’s college essay.

"You clearly love Sacramento," she says.

"I do?" Lady Bird replies, confused.

"You write about it so affectionately and with such care," Sister Joan observes.

Lady Bird shrugs. "I was just describing it."

"Well, it comes across as love," Sister Joan smiles. "Don’t you think maybe they’re the same thing? Love and attention?"

I’m learning how to love myself by paying attention to my pain. I’ve been stuck in a cycle of avoiding my responsibilities, my writing, my feelings, and myself. This cycle comes because I’m afraid of the pain that comes with confronting my fear of failure, my fear of not being good enough, and my fear of worthlessness. I’m afraid of feeling this because I’m scared it will last forever. Writing this piece is a reminder to myself that as intense as it may feel in the moment, it will eventually pass with time. This is my love letter to my pain.

Dear Pain,

I hate you. You suck. You hurt. You make me feel like shit. You make me want to run away from it all. I am angry at you. You are awful. Why do I have so much of you in my life? Why can’t you just go away like I want you to?

And thank you. Thank you because you remind me that I am human. You exist to motivate me, to protect me, to help me move forward. You show me where I am hurting. Thank you for showing me where I need to pay attention.

I love you.

Christina.