We are now in a better position to discuss this idea. We can relax and stick a pin into our skin without feeling discomfort, and we can touch our skin with the burning string as it glows red hot without any real feeling of hurt. In both instances we feel something, as we have not made our arm numb by dissociation. I find it very hard to describe what we do actually feel. There do not seem to be the right words to describe it. This is so because it is a feeling which we do not ordinarily experience. It is not just the feeling of touch because there is more in it than that. It is not pain as we ordinarily know it because it does not hurt. It is in fact the feeling of pure pain.
As we learn to do our exercises with less and less regression, we become more fully aware of this new sensation. It is not a nice sensation, neither is it nasty. There is no pleasure in it as in the masochistic embellishment of pain. We can feel pleased in a natural way with our newly learned ability to experience pain in this fashion, but this is a reality-based pleasure and quite distinct from the perverted pleasure of masochism.
As with the other aspects of this system, of self-management of anxiety and pain, we integrate this principle into our ordinary way of life. When by chance we are exposed to pain, we recollect the sensation of pure pain which we experienced during our exercises, and as we relax, the present pain merges into this new sensation. We must practise this in all the incidents of trivial pain which befall us. In the past we could have borne these minor incidents just as best we could; but now we use them to practise our new-found ability.
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