Talking About Pain

And other ways we avoid actually dealing with it

If complaining worked, the world would be a much calmer place by now. We talk about our pain constantly, describe it in detail, replay it in our minds, and yet it remains stubbornly intact.

We know how to narrate our suffering. We can explain exactly what went wrong, who hurt us, why it’s unfair, and how long we’ve been carrying it. We have a language for every shade of discomfort. But knowing how to describe pain and knowing how to reduce it are not the same skill.

You cry, I’m suffering severe pain! Are you then relieved from feeling it? Did that make you feel better? Seneca

It sounds almost cruel when you first hear it. As if the problem with suffering were that we’re too emotional, too expressive, too human. But that’s not what the question is really asking. It’s pointing to a quieter truth: expression is not a cure. Feeling something deeply does not automatically mean you understand it, and understanding it does not automatically mean it will stop hurting.

We live in a culture that places enormous faith in venting. Talk it out. Let it out. Don’t bottle it up. And to be fair, there is wisdom in that. Suppressed emotion doesn’t disappear; it waits. It turns into tension, resentment, or numbness. Naming pain is healthier than pretending it doesn’t exist.

But somewhere along the way, we started to believe something stronger: that expression itself is healing. That once pain is spoken, it should soften. That awareness should lead to relief. That if we just describe our suffering accurately enough, it will dissolve under its own honesty.

It rarely does.

You can complain about heartbreak and still be heartbroken.
You can vent about anxiety and still wake up anxious.
You can talk about being stuck for years and still be in the same place.

The words move. The pain stays.

There’s a subtle disappointment in realizing this. Almost like pain has broken an agreement. We expect it to respond to being noticed. We assume it wants to be heard. But pain doesn’t want attention. It wants resolution, and resolution is usually harder than expression.

This is where the Stoic perspective becomes uncomfortable, but useful. The Stoics were not against emotion. They were against the illusion that emotion, by itself, is productive. They saw suffering as something that grows when it is repeated without being examined.

In their view, most pain is not just a sensation—it’s a judgment. A story we’re telling ourselves about what something means. About what was lost. About what should have happened. About what this says about us.

We don’t just feel sad.
We feel sad because something “shouldn’t” have ended.
We don’t just feel anxious.
We feel anxious because uncertainty feels like danger.

The emotion feels automatic, but it’s built on interpretation.

And interpretations can be questioned.

This is the shift most people never make. They stay at the level of feeling. They keep expressing, releasing, venting, narrating. But they never ask what belief is feeding the feeling.

They know what hurts.
They rarely ask why it hurts this way.

So pain becomes familiar. It turns into something they carry around like a background soundtrack. Not always loud, but always present. And slowly, it becomes part of their identity.

“I’m just an anxious person.”
“I’m someone who’s always unlucky in love.”
“I’ve had a hard life.”

These feel honest, but they’re dangerous. They turn temporary experiences into permanent definitions. They transform pain from a condition into a character trait.

The Stoics would say: Be careful what you rehearse. The mind doesn’t just experience suffering—it trains it.

Every time you repeat the same story, you strengthen it. Every time you replay the same interpretation, you make it more believable. Attention is not neutral. It amplifies.

This doesn’t mean ignoring pain. It means refusing to let pain become the center of your mental life.

There’s a difference between acknowledging suffering and orbiting it.

Acknowledging says: This hurts.
Orbiting says: This is who I am now.

One is honest. The other is imprisoning.

What is offered instead was not emotional suppression, but emotional discipline. Examining the thoughts behind feelings. In separating what happened from what we’re telling ourselves about what happened.

Because often, the event itself is smaller than the story we build around it.

A rejection becomes proof of unworthiness.
A mistake becomes evidence of failure.
A loss becomes confirmation that nothing lasts.

And then we suffer not just once, but repeatedly—every time we revisit the interpretation.

This is why complaining rarely helps. It keeps the story alive. It reinforces the narrative. It doesn’t challenge it.

It’s not that expression is useless. It’s that expression without reflection becomes repetition.

The Stoics were especially suspicious of mental habits that feel authentic but quietly trap us. One of those habits is emotional rumination: replaying feelings without extracting insight.

It feels like processing. It feels like depth. But often, it’s just circulation.

The same thoughts moving through the same routes, day after day.

Real relief doesn’t come from louder emotion. It comes from clearer seeing.

From asking:
What part of this is within my control?
What part am I resisting unnecessarily?
What expectation is being violated?
What belief is making this hurt more than it needs to?

These questions don’t eliminate pain. But they reduce confusion. And confusion is what multiplies suffering.

There’s a kind of quiet relief that arrives when you stop arguing with reality. When you accept that something has changed, ended, failed, or disappointed you. Not because it’s fair, but because it’s real.

Acceptance, in the Stoic sense, is not resignation. It’s alignment with what is.

It’s the moment you stop asking, Why is this happening to me? and start asking, What is the most honest response to what has happened?

That shift is subtle, but profound. It moves you from victimhood to agency. From reaction to choice.

And that’s the core of Stoic philosophy: no matter what happens externally, your inner posture remains yours to shape.

You don’t control loss.
You don’t control other people.
You don’t control outcomes.

But you do control interpretation.
You do control attention.
You do control response.

This doesn’t make suffering disappear. It makes it lighter. More contained. Less dramatic. Less central.

Pain becomes something you experience, not something you perform.

There’s also a strange comfort in realizing that not every feeling needs to be expressed. Not every thought needs to be shared. Not every discomfort needs to become a narrative.

Sometimes the healthiest move is to feel something fully and privately, without turning it into a story you tell over and over again.

Not because it doesn’t matter.
But because you don’t want to feed it more than necessary.

The mind, like a fire, grows with fuel. Attention is fuel. Language is fuel. Imagination is fuel.

If you constantly add to the fire, you shouldn’t be surprised when it keeps burning.

But if you learn when to step back—when to observe without elaborating—something changes.

The pain is still there. But it’s quieter. More manageable. Less demanding.

And eventually, it passes.

Not because you expressed it perfectly.
But because you stopped reinforcing it.

This is the deeper message behind that blunt old question. It’s not mocking suffering. It’s challenging the fantasy that feeling something intensely is the same as healing from it.

You can cry and still hurt.
You can complain and still suffer.
You can be aware and still be stuck.

Real change begins when you stop asking others to witness your pain and start asking yourself how to live with it wisely.

Not dramatically.
Not heroically.
Just honestly.

That’s the Stoic promise. Not a life without suffering, but a life where suffering doesn’t become your whole identity. Where pain passes through you, instead of becoming the place you live.

Where you stop crying into the wind—and start listening to what the wind is actually telling you.