Pain is sensation.

I used to jerk at pain. Pull away quickly and violently. Pain was to be avoided at all costs.

Any physical discomfort was captured here: a tenseness in the arm, a soreness of the knee, an ache in a finger. I'd take each one and make it a cause for concern—what is happening to my body? Have I developed arthritis? Should I stop whatever I'm doing to let my body heal?

Pain is a signal. When it's working healthily, it's an alert system. It says, "hey, you may wanna pay attention to this." The more it wants you to pay attention, the louder it gets. That's its job: to save you from hurting yourself beyond repair.

But pain is not an excuse to stop. Controversial? Maybe. But hear me out.

I can relate only with my own lived experiences. From the start of 2024 till now, I've had jump rope as an important part of my fitness routine. When I started, I would jump for 30 seconds before I would get a headache. After a few days of getting up to 30 seconds, I was able to go to a full minute. No more headaches, but my feet started to cramp. Days and weeks went on, jumping for however long I could. Along the way, I felt all sorts of pain and discomfort, whether related to breathing, muscle cramping, or tenseness all around.

A year later, I comfortably jump 30 minutes, with the ability to push to a full hour as needed. No headaches. Hardly any pain.

I could have stopped at the headaches. I strongly considered it. "If 30 seconds of this gives me a headache, it's not the right exercise for me."

I'm glad I didn't listen to that narrative.

If I had caved into the discomfort, I would never have gotten to enjoy the level of fitness I am at now. And honestly, I do feel great. I am more energized than I've ever been.

Of course, I am not saying push through pain no matter what. I am saying that it's worth learning to build your own intuition around what is discomfort and what is dangerous pain. In most cases, in my own experience at least, my mind would confuse discomfort for dangerous pain. It would block me from doing important things out of fear, in a misguided attempt to protect myself.

I learned this lesson not only through my jump rope journey. The phrase "pain is just sensation" came to me during a Vipassana silent 10-day meditation retreat. When I tell people that I attended, they almost always point out the silence as what must've been the hardest part. Not so. The physical discomfort of sitting for 10 hours per day was absolutely the most grueling aspect of it.

There were times during my sits that my knees were in such incredible discomfort I was certain—absolutely certain—that I was causing irreparable damage. The pain was so intense. In another sit, determined to purely observe sensation rather than react to it, my legs were convulsing up and down. The discomfort was beyond intense.

After the sits, I was completely fine. A little discomfort in the knees, sure, but by the next day, it was as if nothing had happened. The intense discomfort was just sensation. The experience of observing it, rather than reacting to it, however, gave me an empowerment I still carry with me. It's probably the primary reason I was able to work through the discomfort of jumping rope, especially at the beginning.

My example may be a bit extreme. I get that. People say I can be an intense person. So take this all with a grain of salt—I am certainly not advocating that you go through agony arbitrarily. What I want for you is what I would've wanted for a younger me: the knowledge, the deep intuitive knowing, that pain is simply sensation. It is not an excuse. We find either our way through it or our way around it to meet our objective.

Here's my invitation: the next time you experience pain, ask yourself: is this pain or is this discomfort? Experiment with observing your pain before reacting to it. Before you adjust your body to relieve the pain, sit with it and observe it, even if just for a moment.

You might find yourself having a whole new relationship with pain.