No Pain, No Gain?
by Michael Neill
Have you ever watched people suffer at the gym?
I remember one particular man who always reminded me of a medieval priest self-flagellating in punishment for his sins. Driving himself into his sixteenth set of 85 repetitions at a weight three times his own, he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in torturing his body on a daily basis. Every time I saw him, he was wearing a new knee brace or elbow brace or neck brace (at one point he showed up with his leg in a cast to work his upper body)!
The myth of "no pain, no gain" is pervasive in our society. Whether it manifests in your life at the gym, in the office, or in your relationships (!), most of us find ways of punishing ourselves for the best of all possible intentions - to help us to grow, and to motivate ourselves to become "better" people. The only problem is it doesn’t work. Oh, it might work for an hour, a day, or even a month, but over time the pain fades and we find ourselves right back in the old pattern of behaviour. Or worse still, we punish ourselves, feel bad, and then eat cake and take drugs and do things we’ll regret later in order to make the bad feelings we’ve just created go away….
Allow me to share my personal philosophy on the subject. I can sum it up in a simple phrase:
No Pain, no pain!
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