I like mantras, and I think they work.
My dad introduced me to them when I was a kid. Whenever I left the house for suburban neighborhood playtime (we loved making up games in the foundations of houses under construction, until that numnuts Kevin fell and broke his leg), he never failed to recite his parting advisement: Be safe, look both ways.
When I got older, he enlightened me to the most important mantra I’ve adopted to date:
Play with pain.
Allow me to break it down into its 3 primary applications.
You are more powerful than physical pain. This is the most literal interpretation of the mantra, and its foundation. At 6’4″ my dad, Carl, was a formidable offensive end & tackle for his high school’s football team* who often stayed in the game after getting the wind knocked out of him. He created the mantra as a reminder that one’s willpower can overcome their brain’s pain signals.
I called on the mantra for help during a field hockey game in 10th grade, when a pigtailed incendiary from the opposing team hacked away at my stick in a chaotic attempt to steal the ball, pummeling my right thumb in the process and earning herself a foul. As I prepared to take my free hit, I noticed my thumb hadn’t stopped throbbing yet, so I quickly examined it and looked into the crowd for my dad — he met my eyes, nodded, and gave a thumbs up. F*ck it, I thought, of course I’m fine! Play with freakin’ pain.
Months later my doctor would inform me my thumb had broken, but was already nearly healed without intervention. It’s slightly crooked, sure, but still works at 100% capacity as far as I can tell.
You can deal with emotional pain. This type of pain bites harder than the physical kind, at least to me, and I think Carl would agree. In these instances, the encouragement to play with pain reminds one that suffering is an intrinsic part of life; there’s no way to avoid it — you’d have to become a recluse.
My dad and I have similar personalities (I’m an ENFJ and Enneagram 2, if that means anything to you, readers), and until I was able to forge strong friendships, he served as my default listener and advice-giver. He’s still in the top three.
He coached Growing Lauren in the art of dealing with intense emotions and venting them in healthy ways. But everybody boils over sometimes, and one of his favorite stories to tell about me is an incident that occurred in the summer of 2004, after my freshman year at college.
I had a summer job in the patient record department at the hospital where Carl worked, and one mid-morning my friend George dropped a grenade in my lap via text message: my recently ex-boyfriend was seeing a new girl. My face suddenly burned, chest tightened, and stomach seized. I knew this combination — I was about to crumble. I excused myself from the small windowless office I shared with five people and three behemoth, overheated industrial scanners** and made a beeline for Carl’s office.
A man stood in the doorway having a casual chat with him when I blew in. I elbowed that dude out of the way, wobbly croaked “I HAVE A MEETING,” and slammed the door shut before proceeding with the crumble. My dad of course comforted me, and a bit later I was ready to re-join the world.
He waited until the next day to tell me (with slight glee) that the dude I treated to my elbow was the CEO of the hospital.
You gotta get real weird with it. I haven’t run this application past Carl yet; I’m guessing he would think it’s strange but still listen graciously.
Have you seen the show It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia? Danny DeVito plays Frank Reynolds, a formerly wealthy businessman who ditched the corporate world to embrace his feral nature. Two of his shenanigans that make me wheeze-laugh are when he trips on acid and gets stuck in a bucket, and the time he emerges naked from a couch during a Christmas party.
Frank attends a relative’s funeral in one episode, where he wistfully opines to his friends and family:
“Well — I don’t know how many years on this Earth I got left…I’m gonna get reeeeeal WEIRD with it.
That’s the type of absurdist energy behind this interpretation of the mantra, which I’m struggling to describe without hackneyed references to the universe and life.
So I’ll defer to 50 Cent!
“Many Men (Wish Death)” came out in 2003, which means my fellow glaringly white suburbanite peers and I were butchering the song the year we graduated high school. 50 paraphrases an old adage, saying:
Sunny days wouldn’t be special if it wasn’t for rain
Joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for pain
I mean, how can you improve on that succinct conclusion? The man was shot NINE TIMES in the year 2000, so I feel like he’s earned our listening ears when he talks about life and death.
To get to the damn point already: If we can remind ourselves during the unpleasant parts that the difficulty will eventually give way, as it always has before, and always will… why not try to play with the pain a bit, get a little weird with it? I was depressed for a good chunk of the pandemic and am not embarrassed to admit that it led to the creation of some very emo art. I also leaned into it by breaking out my most depressing sheet music for the piano, and my Spotify playlist aptly titled, “For when you’re feeling 😔 .”
Fiona Apple’s entire discography may even be an example of this application of the mantra.
I’ve mentioned before that I help take care of my upstairs neighbor, a kindergartener, who I refer to here as Sugar.† When the school year started virtually, she “attended” in the little classroom I set up in my apartment. Now that it’s in-person again, I drop her and three other neighborhood kids at their school in the morning.
One of the best parts of this relationship (speaking for myself, of course) is the chance to pass along my wisdom and life lessons to a young mind. I’ve taught her what to do if a man ever tries to abduct her (jab at the eyes and kick/punch the groin), how to deal with anxiety (personify it as a monster and talk back to it; she aptly named hers Trashy), the secrets to a bangin’ grilled cheese (before doing anything else in the pan, lightly toast the sides of the bread that’ll go on the inside of the sandwich)…
…and, obviously, how to play with pain. While she confidently grasps the first two applications of the mantra, we’ll need to the revisit the third in a couple years — too existential for kindergarten, I’ve learned.
You can imagine my delight when one day in the car, before we picked up the other kids, and months after I introduced the concept, she piped up from the back seat:
“Oh yeah, neighbor? Emma fell down on the playground yesterday. She was crying real hard. Her knee was bleeding. I told her how to play with pain.”
“WHAT!? YES! HOLY CRAP! Good job, sweetheart! What did Emma say?”
She thought for a second.
“Nothing. I’m not even sure she heard me. She cries loud.”
Footnotes:
*One of the stories I regularly harangue my dad to tell is the time during one of those high school football games that his quarterback took a humongous blow to the head. At first it looked like he was going to shake it off, but when he joined the next huddle, he looked into the wide receiver’s eyes and muttered apprehensively: “I don’t know if I can do this, mom.”
**That room smelled like sweat and melting plastic.
†She mostly calls me “neighbor,” because she got used to it before she was able to remember my name. If she ever outgrows it I will be upset.
Words For Friends 