Mind over matter

Reader question:

When somebody is “described as ‘totally out of his depth’ after being Please explain “mind over matter”, as in: “He played through many injuries… This is a true example of mind over matter.”

My comments:

Have you ever heard someone say “Back pain starts at the brain”?

Or have you had any back pain anyway?

If you haven’t, all the more power to you. In other words, lucky you but most of us other adults, who have a regular job which involves sitting at a table in front of a computer screen must have had it at one time or the other.

By saying “back pain starts at the brain”, then, they mean to say two things. First, if one stops thinking about how back pain, especially if it’s gone on for some time, is going to make your life miserable again today, then its effect may become lessened or even negligible.

Second, they can even block out the pain by sheer will. That is, if they are strong-minded enough to focus their mind on the task at hand and concentrate on getting the job done. At the end of the day, they may actually feel as if their back pain had gone away.

Anyways, in our example, someone playing through injury is being discussed as an example of mind over matter, using one’s will to enable oneself to overcome physical pain caused by an injury.

Mind refers to one’s free will. Matter refers to physical matter, here our physical body.

The body, when injured, is in pain. However, if the pain is to a degree manageable, players use their mind to block out the pain and continue to play.

Again, they do that by focusing their full attention on the task at hand, at trying to win a championship, for example. It’s not that the pain caused by the injury disappears – it is still there – just that it’s being ignored.

I am sure you’ll notice this sooner or later, but any time if our mind focus on something, be it a small illness or a family issue, it grows. It grows and grows till it becomes something dominating our whole thought process, making it impossible for us to get anything else done.

However, on the other hand, if we’re so occupied with something else important and manage to put the said illness or family aside for a while, then it begins to diminish in size and weight.

And, the best part of it is, when we come back to the illness or family issue some time later, we may sometimes find they’re gone, like, completely. Miraculously gone, varnished through thin air.

In other words, out of mind, out of sight.

All right?

Alright, here are media examples of mind over matter: