Recently one of my kids had to get an MRI scan. It wasn’t her first time, but it had been a while and long enough for her to forget the details. She wasn’t nearly as scared of the actual test, despite the fact that it would be loud and enclosed over her head and she would have to lay still for over an hour. Her biggest fear had to do with the IV she had to get prior to the MRI. As much as I reassured her that there would be minimal to no pain (the hospital specializes in kids and does an amazing job making it as pain-free as possible), there was absolutely no convincing her. She was stuck on this thought that the IV would hurt. She became anxious and tearful with any mention or reminder of her upcoming test. As the days got closer to her scan, her anxiety heightened. All she could think about was this inevitable pain that she would soon experience. Her fear reached a peak and the tears flowed as we sat together in the waiting room listening for her name to be called.
That’s when I had an idea. I thought about coaching and how much is has helped me in times of anxiety and fear. In fact, I had turned to coaching several times leading up to that particular scan to help me cope with my own thoughts of impending doom and what I would make the results of the MRI mean. I am a trained coach through The Life Coach School. A main principal we learn and base our coaching on is that circumstances don’t cause our feelings, thoughts do. It seems so simple, yet so easy to forget when you are the one with a particular feeling and a particular circumstance. Just like most of us, my daughter attributed her feeling of fear to a circumstance outside of her, in this case the fact that she was getting an IV in her arm. What she didn’t realize was that the only reason she was afraid of the IV was because she had a thought that went something like, “This will hurt”. I could tell her over and over again until I was blue in the face that the IV won’t hurt, but there was no way she would believe me. Her belief was very strong and ingrained. I had to find a different way to show her.
I thought of my niece and her friend. They both have very different reactions to the flu vaccine. One of them gets her shot and thinks nothing of it. She talks about it as an afterthought, and does not describe any pain whatsoever. She doesn’t even realize it’s happened most of the time until the nurse tells her it’s done. The other one, however, nearly passes out from pain. She gets anxious, tightens up, cries, and tries to avoid the shot. It’s a horrible experience for her and she describes it as being very painful and unpleasant. I asked my daughter about these two girls. “Why do you think one feels so much pain and the other doesn’t? Aren’t they both getting the exact same vaccine?” I could almost see the wheels turning in my daughter’s mind. Hmmm …
We talked about this beautiful concept some more – our thoughts create our feelings. I gave her a few more examples of people we know who had the same vaccine, but totally different experiences of pain. It finally dawned on her – the only difference in their experience was the thoughts they had about the vaccine. Which thoughts led to a less painful, better outcome? Which ones allowed you to relax your muscles so that everything would go smoother? Which thoughts made you tense up and create more pain? It was at this very moment that I knew my daughter finally understood that her name was called. She stood up on her own and walked cautiously, but slightly more confidently to the next room where she would get the dreaded IV. “Remember,” I reminded her, “you have more control than you think. You get to decide how much or how little pain there will be.”
We often don’t realize just how much power we give circumstances outside of our control. We create stories in our mind that life is unfair and we are the victim. We bring undo suffering onto ourselves. We forget how much control we actually still have, even when faced with situations not of our choosing. Focusing on our thoughts, which we can control, and choosing ones that serve us in the way we desire is the key to reducing suffering. This is a tool so simple, yet so profound, that adults and children alike can learn and apply.
Remember, pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.
