Dear Girija:

“I was opining that perhaps when you see life as only pain, you’ll settle for familiar pain and not consider that there might be a future that is pain-free… life itself is pain. Pain you can’t run away from” – I agree, life is not pain-free, there is no such option. But there is no point in not preventing unnecessary pain whenever possible, and in not taking breaks from pain, whenever possible, and the longer the breaks we can take, the better.

“I would love to know why you think we are fearful of something that has already happened” – because following a painful experience an association in our brain is formed between X (source of pain) and Y (a particular pain). This neural/ chemical association gets reactivated and re-experienced again and again.

We imagine that more of Y is right around the corner, in the near future, but in Y is happening in our brain/ body (present tense) while we are imagining the future, via neurotransmitters, hormones, and such.

anita