# Pain > Pain reflects resistance to natural self through definitions that choose against who you prefer to be. - Canonical: https://sassani.app/topic/pain # Pain Pain, in Bashar's framing, is the experience produced by resisting the natural self — the side effect of holding definitions out of alignment with who you prefer to be. The gathered sessions emphasize that circumstances are neutral and that pain is therefore not inherent in the event but in the resistance brought to it. They also preserve a standing boundary: this is an energetic interpretation that never replaces qualified medical care, and physiological causes are explicitly acknowledged. ## Pain as resistance to the natural self The headline formulation is direct: "All pain is resistance to the natural self. The longer you resist the true natural you, the more pain you will suffer." Read this way, the pain is not produced by the event itself but by the resistance — by belief systems that make you choose against being your natural self. The session's practical turnaround is that, understood this way, what needs to die is not the body but the resisting beliefs: "if you understand that the only reason the pain exists is because you have belief systems that make you choose to resist your natural self, then perhaps what you will actually kill are those beliefs instead." The chronic-pain session applies the same principle with an explicit medical qualification. It acknowledges that "there can be physiological reasons for such things" and treats the work case by case; even so, "even in the creation of a situation that would bring about a physiological reason for pain, still fundamentally, energetically speaking, usually pain is the result of resisting the natural self." When pain persists in the self-generated case, it usually indicates the core belief has not yet been reached; the framing never claims to be a diagnosis. ## The motivational mechanism: why pain can persist Pain's persistence is explained through what the corpus calls the motivational mechanism — the unwavering rule that you always and automatically move toward what you believe to be in your best interest and away from what you believe is not. The consequence is that anything you keep holding onto — including something painful — is, somewhere in your definitions, being rated as more beneficial than the alternative you say you prefer. "You hold on to nothing that you don't actually believe is somehow serving you. No matter how painful they may be, what you're actually saying is the alternative is worse." So the question is not "why am I in pain?" but "what would I have to believe is true about who I prefer to be that makes staying in pain feel safer than becoming that?" The same session sharpens the test by attacking the contradiction inside the definition itself. The self you prefer to be cannot, by definition, contain the negativity you fear: "How could becoming who you prefer to be contain a definition of being something that is not what you prefer? Your definitions are muddled." Once the definitions are clarified, the resistance — and with it the pain — loses its reason to persist, because the version of you on the other side does not, by definition, contain it. ## Pain sometimes serves relationship, not just learning A less obvious source of pain appears in the chronic-pain exchange: pain can be created from a belief that shared suffering is required in order to relate to or help others. People "may take upon themselves the idea of discomfort and pain in order to have the knowledge and the experience they need to be able to relate to others," and the question to ask is whether another way of relating is allowed. The proposed move is imaginative — "what other ways might you imagine you can learn to relate to people without necessarily experiencing it in a painful way?" ## Acceptance and the natural self rather than resistance Because pain lives in the resistance rather than the event, the orientation is to accept the present fully and use it up, which is what allows it to change; resistance prolongs it. Movement toward what excites you is repeatedly framed as the route back to the natural self: "May I ask if there is some specific thing that is representative of your excitement that you are not doing? Some dream that you are not living, that you would rather be living? Then you may be on the road to healing yourself in that way." This is a redirect toward an unlived exciting direction, not a treatment. ## The rubber-band analogy: darkness as potential The sessions reframe intense darkness in a way that bears on severe pain. Through the rubber-band analogy, going into the deepest darkness is what gives you the opportunity to spring into the brightest light: "by going into the deepest darkness, do you give yourself the opportunity, as you say, through the rubber band analogy, to spring into the brightest light. And that makes you a master." The same frame is held with care: it is an interpretive reorientation, not a directive to endure suffering or to forgo help. ## Practical implications Treat pain as a pointer to resistance, not as a verdict on reality. The event is neutral; the resistance is where the pain lives. Ask what believing in the pain is being defined as protecting you from. Because the motivational mechanism always moves you toward what you believe serves you, persistent pain suggests the alternative is being defined as worse; locate that definition. Examine the definition of who you prefer to be for contradictions. If that self is being defined as containing the pain you fear, the definitions are muddled and can be clarified. Ask whether the pain is being created to relate to or help others. The belief that shared suffering is required to be of service can be questioned, and another way of relating imagined. Move toward what excites you as the route back to the natural self. An unlived exciting direction is treated as relevant to the easing of resistance. These are framing tools, not medical direction. The sessions consistently acknowledge physiological causes and case-by-case circumstances; nothing here overrides qualified medical, psychiatric, or emergency care for pain, chronic illness, or suicidal feeling. ## Representative passages All pain is resistance to the natural self. The longer you resist the true natural you, the more pain you will suffer. ... If you understand that the only reason the pain exists is because you have belief systems that make you choose to resist your natural self, then perhaps what you will actually kill are those beliefs instead.— Bashar, All Pain Is Resistance To The Natural Self (all-pain-is-resistance-to-the-natural-self#qa-1) Even though we understand that there can be physiological reasons for such things, even in the creation of a situation that would bring about a physiological reason for pain, still fundamentally, energetically speaking, usually pain is the result of resisting the natural self.— Bashar, Chronic Pain Resisting The Natural Self A Game Of Chess (chronic-pain-resisting-the-natural-self-a-game-of-chess#qa-1) You hold on to nothing, nothing that you don't actually believe is somehow serving you. No matter how painful they may be, what you're actually saying is the alternative is worse.— Bashar, Motivational Mechanism Pleasure Vs Pain (motivational-mechanism-pleasure-vs-pain#qa-1) How could becoming who you prefer to be contain a definition of being something that is not what you prefer? ... If that really is the you prefer to be, it cannot, cannot, by definition, contain the elements of negativity that you're describing.— Bashar, Motivational Mechanism Pleasure Vs Pain (motivational-mechanism-pleasure-vs-pain#qa-4) ## Related - [Resistance](https://sassani.app/topic/resistance) - [Healing](https://sassani.app/topic/healing) - [Definitions & Beliefs](https://sassani.app/topic/definitions-and-beliefs) - [Excitement](https://sassani.app/topic/excitement) - [The Rubberband Analogy](https://sassani.app/topic/the-rubberband-analogy) - [Natural Self](https://sassani.app/topic/natural-self) Markdown twin of https://sassani.app/topic/pain. The HTML page is the source of truth.