The Difference between Pain and Harm

This post offers a simple consideration for the wellness and vitality of your interpersonal relationships: what is the difference, for you, between causing pain for someone and causing harm?

We’re playing the language game here, as these two terms can be broken down and understood in multiple ways. I’d like to refrain from the traditional academic approach of me defining the terms. Instead, I’d like to propose that you explore the difference for yourself.

It might help to start by considering a common dynamic. You are in a relationship (of any kind… familial, intimate, professional, etc.) with someone you like or love or at least are invested in. (If you’re more empathic by nature, this could apply to anyone you meet.) You generally don’t want the other person to feel bad. A situation comes up where you anticipate that something you might say or do or admit to feeling will cause pain for the other person. Your inner wisdom tells you that the thing is true, or needs to be said, or needs to be done. But you don’t want to hurt them. So you avoid it. Or you soften it so much that it remains unclear. Or you try to convince yourself otherwise (even though you know it’s true.) Or you just try to hold the weight of it all to yourself.

This critical place is where we can consider the difference between pain and harm. Pain is guaranteed in life. There is no stopping it from happening. The nature of pain is that it doesn’t feel good and you want it to go away. It causes negative associations with whatever is bringing it. Many would say that Navigating pain is a critical life skill that is necessary for growth, developing agency, and the deepest levels of self-knowledge. Harm can be considered something like (again find your own definitions here) consciously doing something or withholding something that will end up causing more pain and suffering and less agency for the other person over time.

What if we tend to get those two confounded? Meaning that we think that causing pain is causing harm. If we consider the role of empathy, causing pain means feeling the pain for yourself as well. If we consider the associative nature of the human mind, causing pain for another associates you with their reaction to the pain… meaning some part of them will have a negative reaction toward you. If we consider some of the less conscious reactions people have, sometimes causing pain means that the other person will overtly blame you and throw a fit and tell you that you are harming them. (Maybe a good time to check out the blogs on codependency and boundaries.)

What if withholding pain in such situations actually causes harm? What if it actually disempowers the other person? What if it seeks to protect them or protect you from feeling bad but ultimately prolongs and strengthens the total pain you both will feel? What if, in these conditions, causing pain is a way of serving love and truth for self and the other person? What if, once you get past the threshold of pain, it usually leads to more liberation in your life?

A dear friend would often tell me, take care of the dust bunnies before they become dust storms. If it’s already going to be a dust storm, then at least you can stop making it bigger. Take your courage and compassion with you.

It is worth saying that these considerations might be best first enacted at lower intensity if possible and after some personal reflection. A habit of blunt honesty without compassionately considering the other person can be aggression. It can also contribute to believing that everything you think is true because you don’t pause long enough to investigate it. So empathy and self-knowledge can guide good, loving, and clear conditions to help a painful message be heard and received in the best way possible.

~May You Thrive in All Your Relationships~

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