Got Pain? F%ck it!

By Sean Covell

Pain is a part of life. There’s no way to get around that. As the over-used saying goes, “it is what it is.” So what do we do? How do we cope? I think after 16 years of daily, consistent, unrelenting pain, I’ve found the answer. The key is to focus on the pain. Where in your body does it hurt? Why does it hurt? Breathe in and out deeply for 10 full breaths. Hold the last breath in and while exhaling, say out load, “fuck it.” I refer to this as the Fuck It Theory of Pain, which will be abbreviated to the FIT theory.

The FIT theory is based on the premise that you will always have some sort of pain in your life. If one part is healed, another will be injured. If you’re kicking ass and taking names, eventually you’ll fall and hurt yourself. That’s not a bad thing. Pain lets us know that we are alive. Besides, what would pleasure be without pain? We think as humans that pain is part of what drives us. We seek to avoid pain and seek out as much as pleasure as possible through our lives. My theory? Fuck it. There will always be pain. You can try forever to avoid risk, avoid pain in life but you will not succeed. Instead, embrace the FIT theory of pain, breathe deep and say “fuck it. I’ve got pain, but not as much as many do and I’m going to move forward with this skin sack that I’ve been gifted as birth and make my life stand for something.” (IF THERE IS AN UNDERLYING CAUSE FOR YOUR PAIN, BY ALL MEANS FIX IT! If your arm hurts because you broke it skiing, don’t be an idiot. Go to the hospital and get it fixed. I’m not talking about that pain. I’m talking about the daily aches and problems in life.)

If you embrace the FIT of pain, you’ll notice after sometime that your mind will begin to ignore the pain. It will no longer stop you in your tracks. You will have conditioned your mind to accept the level of pain your are experiencing and raise your tolerance to it. Wim Hoff, the Dutchman who climbed Everest in shorts sat in icewater for over 80 minutes has shown us that we can adapt and increase tolerance to extreme temperatures. (For a great time, google Wim Hoff the Iceman or Youtube search him.) The same is true with pain tolerance. You can increase your tolerance to pain through your mind. But first, you have to be willing to say fuck it! Don’t run and hide from pain. Don’t overmedicate yourself. Don’t abuse drugs to mask it. Dig deep inside yourself and move forward. The FIT theory of pain will help you move past the pain and start to really live again. -Sean