Clean or dirty?

There is a way to describe our response to painful life situations

In the past few years the phrase “trauma-informed” has become a common adjective for those of us who work with people, especially people who have experienced significant pain in their lives. The research is ongoing and quite impressive with regard to ways trauma impacts human beings in our many representations: individually, within a family, in a generation, even over the course of multiple generations. Claudia and I often remarked to one another that if this had been working knowledge thirty years ago, there are many ways we would have changed the parenting of our foster and adoptive children. We did the best with what we had, and with what was the prevailing wisdom of the time, but we now know so much more.

Yesterday my regional denominational body (we call it the “Annual Conference,” the regional grouping of a number of congregations under the episcopal leadership of a Bishop) sponsored a Clergy Gathering which focused on ways leaders and caregivers can benefit from trauma-informed care for self and others. Some of the information was familiar to me, but one concept in particular was quite helpful.

The group facilitator spoke of pain as being either “clean” or “dirty.” He offered us techniques throughout the session to help pastors and other caregivers to regulate our own emotions when engaged in difficult, overloaded situations. These were largely breathing exercises (“somatic” approaches), and I discovered to my surprise these are strategies I have been unknowingly using over the past year.

To understand the difference between “clean pain” and “dirty pain,” we begin with the reality that pain is a part of our human condition. What we do with the pain that invades our lives makes it either “clean” or “dirty.”

Fostering a clean approach to pain means that we acknowledge it for what it is: a significant, often temporary (though it doesn’t seem like it in its origin) stressor in life that we can survive as we practice clear-headed honesty with ourselves (and others), utilizing a spiritual approach (“mindfulness,” for example) and offering kindness to ourselves,

A dirty approach creates unnecessary suffering by denying or rejecting pain’s reality, or harshly judging ourselves in the process. Dirty pain is clean pain with added, often self-punishing, dimensions.

Clean pain is: “My spouse has died, and this is overwhelming.”

Dirty pain is: “My spouse has died, this is overwhelming, and I could have done more to prevent this … or I should have [done something different] before they died.”

In moments of deep crisis, some of us punish ourselves or find (usually illogical) reasons to make ourselves feel worse, believing in some odd way that this is beneficial. But, of course, it’s not beneficial. It only intensifies and prolongs what we are already experiencing, and in the case of a loved one’s death, benefits no one.

I have learned that the mind suffering deep loss (or other kinds of overwhelming distress) is not a rational mind, and for a period in the grieving process this may be expected. To ignore our pain or to deny its effect is not abnormal. It becomes abnormal when our preferred way of confronting pain is to make it even more difficult than it already is.

Over the months since Claudia’s death, I have had my share of “dirty pain,” but I am grateful that she and I created over the years the kind of relationship that didn’t allow me to persist in that mode for long. Had we lived a highly conflicted or numbly disconnected life together, I’m sure my inclination would have been to bury myself in loads of dirty pain, replete with self-blame and misdirected anger or unflinching depression.

For you who read this wondering how to prepare yourself for a significant time of pain in your life, I would say a couple of things.

First, it is inevitable that your time of painful overwhelm will arrive one day. This is reality, but you don’t need to perseverate about it and there isn’t much you can do to “plan” for it.

Second, one of your best proactive steps is to tend to your important relationships. Find ways to get beyond yourself (or to fully discover yourself) so that you can be part of creating solid, trustworthy connections with those most important in your life. If you don’t have those kind of people in your life, this is the time to find them. Cultivate and nurture those relationships, so that when something does happen (and it eventually will), you will be more prepared, or in the case of your own demise, those you love will be better prepared to say goodbye to you.

Third, tend to your relationship with yourself. Seriously, find your spiritual path (or enhance the one you currently practice). If you need to work with a therapist to make sense of who you are, do that. If your issues aren’t therapeutic ones, consider partnering with a spiritual director or a spiritual companion to help you sort out what’s happening in your soul, that space deep within that defines who we truly are.

In life we can’t avoid pain, but we can take healthy steps to practice “clean pain,” rather than revert to “dirty pain.” There’s something about those who live with and through “clean pain” that’s inspiring to others and fosters more goodness in the world. On the contrary, there’s something with “dirty pain” practitioners that is dispiriting and tears down the human fabric of life.

I want to practice a clean approach to pain, because it’s the most redemptive way for me to find my way in the valley of the shadow of death. It’s healing to my soul and, I trust, a benefit to those around me.