“We in the West have been trained and conditioned since childhood, firstly by over-anxious mothers and then by the values of society, to be afraid of pain, to see it as an enemy to fight and repel. Television advertisements don’t say, ‘Relax and learn to ease it’ when showing someone in pain. They say, “Take this pill or that pill and they will make you relaxed enough for your headache to go.  They implant attitudes which make us think we have to buy our way out of pain. In subtle ways they tell us that we DESERVE relief from it; that it is one of our rights to lead a pain-free life.”

Ursula Fleming  — Grasping the Nettle [pg. 33]