Whenever I’m in the middle of a particularly gruesome Thai massage, the voice in my head enjoys narrating:

• “WHAT am I doing here??”
• “Are you sure this is good for you?”
• “Ouch! I came here to RELAX!!”
• “OMGawd, what was THAT?”

With the tiny masseuse’s feet around my ears, knees digging into every back muscle I have, and twists I haven’t even attempted in yoga, her 4’8″ frame seems like it must have been switched out for the 6’4″ security guard I saw trying to lure four young, suited, staggering men into the dodgy North Beach ‘entertainment’ club last Friday night. It hurts. “How can someone so small inflict so much pain!?” inquires the voice. Then, just when I think I can relax for a moment… “AHHHHHHH !” another tight muscle is discovered.

Thankfully, as is the case with some painful experiences, you feel fantastic afterward and then go back and do it all again the following week. This certainly wasn’t my first Thai massage…

But sometimes we’re willing to stay in pain even when we know it’s not good for us.

Typically we imagine two kinds of pain:

Negative pain might be an abusive relationship, or stabbing oneself with a fork, or the result of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute and surviving…

Positive pain might be a dental cavity being fixed, a Thai massage, writing job applications, the heartache of a dysfunctional lost love or leaving a toxic work environment.

And yet sometimes we run from positive pain, and drown in negative. Usually because of some kind of subtle untouched fear that runs us from behind the scenes.

Imagine for a moment that you’re having a dream, and in the dream you’re suddenly face-to-face with a bear.

A growling, salivating 8 foot tall grizzly bear on his hind legs, towering over your tiny green tent and freshly baked cookies. You could face the grizzly head on, and whip out your kayak oar to get him away. And maybe if you did that you might learn something (when you wake up) about your relationship with confrontation or bullying or authority. But why would you? Somewhere in the back of your mind you’re aware it’s a dream which means you have tons of other choices: you could run away, share the cookies, or turn the bear into a calico kitten. You have many options.

But the bear seems real, right? Even though you might be aware it’s a dream, it still seems real – and, based on that perception, some of you will attack head on, some will run, and some will magically change it into something else and hope to not get eaten.

Sometimes we have to remember we’re in a dream – we’re imagining the bear. Our most persistent fears often appear ‘real’. And the only way to see if they are real – are we really not qualified for the work we want to do? is it really true that this is as good as love is ever going to be for us? is money really the reason we’re not moving on? – is to move towards them and find out.

To be very honest – this is usually when we discover that old fears that feel like us and feel necessary have been keeping us stuck in some god-awful situation or relationship that we knew we should have left eons ago. But that said…

It takes bravery to find out if the lies are lies, and I rarely see people do it alone.

So what can you do? Pull in resources – friends, family, attend workshops, read relevant books, hire a coach or therapist with a solid reputation – educate your mind, get your cheering squad together and the next time that bear rears up and growls menacingly at this you might find yourself responding differently:

“Hmmmm, looks like a bear, sounds like a bear, rears up like a bear – sure feels like I’m about to be eaten by a bear, but y’know… there’s something about this ‘bear’ that tells me I’m going to be okay; so let’s go.”

And right then instead of running – grab your cookies, raise up your oar, and growl right back! Then see what happens… You might find that that bear is your greatest ally.

Disclaimer: please do not attempt with real bears