On Psychological Pain and Broken Ankles

"Making major decisions is an inescapable part of the process of living. Dissonance—the psychological pain that accompanies many of these decisions—is a natural and useful signal that the decision in question involves a difficult and complex assessment of the involved values."

~ Douglas Lisle, PhD , Reducing the Stress of Making Major Decisions

*************************
My thoughts on this:

In this article, Douglas Lisle, PhD compares the psychological pain that accompanies major decisions to other types of signals we receive from our body, such as the physical pain caused by a broken ankle.

In the simplest of terms, physical pain is a signal that tells our body "Hey - there is something not quite right here, we need to stop, rest, take care of ourselves, look for professional help, use some additional support, learn new ways of doing things, while we are healing...until we are ready to stand on our own again". If we keep moving, and ignore the pain, we will most likely end up causing more damage.

The same goes for psychological pain. It is a signal that ""Hey - there is something not quite right here, we need to stop, rest, take care of ourselves, look for professional help, use some additional support, learn new ways of doing things, while we are healing...until we are ready to stand on our own again".

If we keep moving, and ignore the pain, without dealing with it, we will most likely end up causing more damage, and our only other option is to mask (numb) the pain through temporary fixes, addictions, self destructive behaviors, etc.

This reminds me of something I read last night: "...those feelings will alert you to the fact that it’s time to wake up!! You’re believing your thoughts before you’ve even questioned them. That’s what stressful feelings are for—they’re a gift, they’re not an enemy...."

peace, hope and love,

Lily