Pain Isn’t Weakness — It’s Protection
Pain is often misunderstood as a sign of failure — a broken part, a weak spot, something to be ashamed of. But pain isn’t weakness. It’s your body doing its best to protect you.
Think of pain as an internal alarm system. When the brain senses threat — whether physical, emotional, or imagined — it can activate pain to get your attention and guide your behavior [1].
This doesn’t mean you’re fragile. It means you’re alive. Adaptive. Aware.
Sometimes, the protection is necessary. Sometimes, it’s overactive. Either way, it’s not a sign that you’re broken. It’s a sign that your system is trying — maybe too hard — to keep you safe [2].
When you shift from judging the pain to understanding it, you make space for healing to begin [3].
References:
Eccleston, C., & Crombez, G. (1999). Pain demands attention: A cognitive–affective model of the interruptive function of pain. Psychological Bulletin.
Moseley, G. L., & Butler, D. S. (2015). Fifteen years of explaining pain: The past, present, and future. Journal of Pain Research.
Lumley, M. A., & Schubiner, H. (2019). Emotional awareness and expression therapy: Advancing the treatment of medically unexplained symptoms. Psychosomatic Medicine.