How to Overcome Fear

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash
Lack of self care or harm to oneself according to Martha Beck is particular to humans because we can imagine the future. A painful future. We are inhabited with thoughts and stories about the future that causes us pain.

There are 2 types of pain - Clean Pain and Dirty Pain.

What is clean pain? Well it's the physical pain you feel from an injury or the emotional pain from the recent loss of a loved one.  Dirty pain  on the other hand is the stories we tell ourselves about the painful things that might happen in the future or the constant churning about an event in the past that we found hard to bear. Now the future according to Martha hasn't happened yet. We can't live in the future we can only experience the now. The future hasn't happened yet, what is happening is this moment right now.

Then dirty pain are just stories we  tell ourselves about an event. They are just the thoughts that crowd into our minds at night when we worry about what might happen, your financial situation or a recent break up.

It's hard to draw a line between what is reality and the stories we've made up to scare ourselves. Yet by just acknowledging that 'hey, this thought I'm having right now - is just that- a thought! Not the painful event - just me rehashing a memory or creating a frightful story worthy of any campfire'.

Here is a great link to a YOUTUBE video where Martha Beck talks about clean and dirty pain.

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