Something that you know is real isn’t hard to believe, even if it’s difficult for others. So what you know in your life experience to be true is not going to be difficult for you to believe when someone says something else of a similar nature. Life takes you on twists and turns, and a part of that is experiencing pain. We all know what pain feels like and we can relate to different types of pain (physical, emotional, psychological etc.), and yet for some reason we all seem so hellbent on inflicting pain on those around us. It is a part of being human and it is a part of the way we collide as a complex combination of atoms into one another. Pain is a consequence or resultant of when there is a disruption in a frequency. So whether that disruption is emotional, physical, psychological etc., we all know and experience some form of pain.

I was watching the Meek Mill music video Pain Away featuring Lil Durk and I had already decided that i was going to write my blog post on the video when Meek says “Don’t judge my pain if you don’t know the shit that I’m against.” It’s incredible that despite the fact that everyone goes through the same thing in different versions and variations, many people still judge others for their pain. They judge them for the way they process their pain, for the way they seek therapy for their pain, for the way they express their pain, and for even just having their pain to begin with.

In a world where a good majority of us are walking around consciously traumatized due to someone else’s inability to properly deal with their own trauma, pain shaming is real. I know even myself, when I was in a very bad mental state I had people close to me who should have been encouraging me to get well telling me dismal or dismissive things about my state. It is important to note that those people are no longer in my life. There are so many reasons one could possibly be experiencing pain in any given moment. Perhaps if we show a little (okay, or a lot more) kindness to one another (and to ourselves) we could heal. Even if a state of absolute healing is not possible, as a certain level of conflict is almost always inevitable where more than one party is concerned, a better stage of healing has got to be possible.

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Our environment is sick. You know that, I know that, Greta Thunberg definitely know that, which means that the kids know it too. Imagine being a child in 2020. Imagine all of the questions that the youth must have that the adults just can’t provide because they themselves don’t even have all of the answers. Imagine their fear. Now counter their fear with decisive action. Take a moment to think about pain shaming in a world such as the one I just described… Doesn’t seem fair, right?

Well, are you guilty of it?

I think if we’re honest a lot of us are. We understand what we understand up until a certain point and until we are presented with new information that encourages us to change our minds we almost cannot comprehend outside of those parameters. We have limits on our perception, even the most open minded of us. It doesn’t mean that we are not capable of evolving thought, but rather that who we are shapes what we think and what we have experienced produces what we know. And with that logic, it is then fair to deduce that in the same way that we often cannot relate to others unless we have been through a similar situation, we may at times pain shame those whose experiences we do not understand.

In the wise words of Dr. Maya Angelou, “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”