Dealing With Pain - Suffering is Optional / "At Home with George” - March 10, 2023

In this week’s "At Home With George” short, mindfulness and performance expert George Mumford discusses pain. We all deal with pain throughout our lives, on many different levels. But how can we avoid the suffering that so often goes hand in hand with pain or at least relate to it in a different way?

George: “The Buddha gave this talk about the two darts theory. If you get hit with a dart, that’s pain. Then there’s a second dart that comes from the suffering or the anguish or the reaction to the pain. Or the thoughts about the pain, beyond the bare sensation of pain. The thinking that happens."

George also quotes Robert Frost; talks about the concept of "bare awareness"; and as always, frames the talk around the possibility of both embracing/saying yes to whatever comes up and generating the hope.

George: “Even the word pain has this reactivity in the body. We’re pushing it away. There’s an aversion in the body; we want to get away from it. The last thing we want to do is embrace it. We want to avoid it. Because the nervous system is programmed to approach what is present and avoid what is unpleasant."

More information on George and the resources he offers can be found here: https://georgemumford.com/.