Where Does It Hurt?

“Tell me where it hurts.” – My Mother

I was very fortunate as a young boy to hear those comforting words quite often.  They were usually followed by, “There now, let me help make it better” and kiss on any particular location of hurting, followed by a hug.    And magically, it helped!  Perhaps your experienced as a child was different, but for me, just having my hurts validated and not feeling alone with them seemed to help attenuate or even eliminate the pain. 

Then at some point in my “growing up,” I rejected those gestures of comfort, pushing them away to embrace a more stoic approach to the pain of life.  “Keep a stiff upper lip,” “don’t let them see you sweat” and “suck it up” became my new mantras which I carried into my adult and professional life.   And I know I’m not alone.  Our culture of medicine only reinforced and encouraged my approach to the pain and hurts of life.   How quickly we forget …

As I look back, there have been some incredibly distressing professional “hurts” that I endured, including some tragic patient outcomes, much doubt about perceived medical errors, and a fairly regular case of the “imposter syndrome.”  And the whole time this little recording was playing in my head saying, “we’re the caregivers, not receivers … the helpers, not the helped …” and so on.  You’ve likely heard some variation of that recording.      

Now here we are in a time when the pain of the world is inescapable, including some you are likely experiencing.  And following our “scripting,” you may find yourself thinking (or every saying), “It’s no big deal” or “I don’t want to burden anyone with my problems” or “I’ve got this” and going right back into suck-it-up mode.   If not you, I guarantee some around you are.

It’s time to let go of our dysfunctional cultural and professional programming and allow more of our humanity to emerge, remembering the healing power that can result from sharing where it hurts.   We could sure use some of that right now.  No one should hurt alone ….