One Moment Changed Everything: How to Cope & Conquer Chronic Pain, With Afia Ofori-Mensa
What if one moment changed everything in your life? And, what if that moment were due to the “color-blind myth”? Below, from the Imagine Talks annual symposium, is Afia Ofori-Mensa on overcoming pain and suffering with a technique called “the Cycle of Non-Regret.”
Afia Ofori-Mensa joined the Office of the Dean of the College in 2019 as the inaugural Director of the Presidential Scholars Program (PSP). The PSP is a three-year PhD resource and readiness program for undergraduates from underrepresented and underserved populations in all fields and disciplines of academia. The program is a regional partnership that hosts cohorts at Princeton University, The College of New Jersey, and Rutgers University campuses at Camden, New Brunswick, and Newark.
If you want to know more about Afia:
- Twitter: Afia Ofori-Mensa
- LinkedIn: Afia Ofori-Mensa
- Facebook: Afia Ofori-Mensa
Below is our edited transcript of Afia Ofori-Mensa’s talk, “One Moment Changed Everything,” at the Imagine Talks Annual Symposium.
Francis Kong: Hello, Afia, how are you doing?
Afia Ofori-Mensa: I’m great, Francis, how are you?
Francis Kong: Doing really well, good to see you again, and thank you for coming and joining us on 2021 Imagine Talks.
Afia Ofori-Mensa: I’m so excited to be here.
Who is Afia Ofori-Mensa?
Francis Kong: We’re super happy to have you. And even it was virtual with you today. I plan to learn a lot about some of your life stories. So but before we jump into it, can you tell us a bit about yourself, who you are, and what do you do?
Afia Ofori-Mensa: Sure. My name is Afia Ofori-Mensa. I have spent some time working as a staff member and most recently a judge of Miss Asian America — Miss Asian Global pageant. But in my day job, I work at Princeton University, where I design programming for students who are especially students who are first-generation college students, low-income students, students of color to help them to — really get a hold on what their values are, what their interests are, what their desires are for whom they want to be in the future, and what kind of impact they want to have on the world.
Princeton University Website
And then to give them the resources, the skill-building, the networking, the opportunities to be able to connect that kind of center of their values and interests, and desires for impact with how they shape their future after college.
Francis Kong: OK, well, that is a huge responsibility and also a really, really powerful mission to help impact a young person’s life like that. So —
Afia Ofori-Mensa: Great!
Francis Kong: — right? So that really begs me to ask [the] next question is: were there any life events that happen to you that really help you focus and gravitate in that direction, that you want to make that kind of impact on other people’s lives?
The moment that changed everything
Afia Ofori-Mensa: There are so many. I think the one incident that I always think of the most is that in 2012, I was hit by a car while across the street. One afternoon — it was a sunny and beautiful afternoon and I went to walk across the street to pay my cable bill. So I was about three-quarters of the way across the street and saw a car coming toward me from my right and I was in a crosswalk. And so I thought, you know, I just need to walk across confidently and the car will stop.
And that’s what I had always done up until that point for years and years and years.
(inaudible) he drove into me. I remember seeing the man who had driven his car into me through the windshield, I remember pausing there, I remember asking him, “What the hell?” But in slow motion and almost silently through the windshield. I don’t even know if he could have heard me. There was a gentleman on the sidewalk who said, “You need to call the police.” And I thought, “Oh, no, no, it’s not a big deal.”
I’m still standing. I haven’t even fallen down. I was braced against the hood of the car. And this gentleman on the sidewalk said, “No, you need to call the police.” And so one of them — came a cop and we called the police and the fire truck came and the police came [and] the ambulance came and they asked me that, “[If] I want an ambulance ride to the emergency room?” And I thought, “Oh, that’s going to be a copay.”
Overlooking the obvious
I’m going to you know, I started thinking about that. And so I told them that, “My ankle was hurting.” And the paramedics gave me an ice pack and I sat there. In the cable co-op and I gave a statement to the police officer with an ice pack on my ankle, and I remember him interviewing the man who had driven into me and the police officer asked, ‘‘How quickly were you going?’’ The man said, ‘‘Oh, I don’t know, 30 miles an hour?’’
And the police officer said, “Are you sure?” The man said, “Well, what’s the speed limit here?” The police officer said, “Twenty-five.” And the man said, “So maybe twenty-seven?” Then the police officer said, “Twenty-five.” And he wrote it down that way. And I remember talking to them — have a conversation about — the police officer said, “Oh, what’s your name?” And he looked at his name. He said, “Oh, that’s a German name. I’m German, too.”
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And they were having this moment of rapport — standing over me as I was sitting there with my ankle and an ice pack. And the police officer ultimately said to the man who had driven into me and he said, you know, “You really did the right thing by stopping and not just driving away. And so I’m not going to give you a ticket. You did the right thing here.” And gestured over toward me with the ice pack on my ankle.
Being unable to empathize
And he said, “Nobody was hurt. It’s OK. Nobody was hurt.” You know, this was it was 2012. And so it was before the real kind of development of what we know now to be — Black Lives Matter and the Movement for Black Lives. But when I think back on that moment, on that experience is the feeling that — it’s the moment when he turned to me, a person with an ice pack on my ankle and said, “Nobody was hurt.”
And it’s clear that I was hurt.
Francis Kong: Right.
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And so that communicated to me was that I was nobody — that it didn’t matter that this man had driven into me, even enough to get a ticket, let alone anything else. And in fact, just a couple of weeks prior, I had gotten a ticket because I was out at night and there was a raccoon that dashed into the road in front of a car in front of me. The car in front of me had hit the raccoon.
And so I was driving up and the raccoon looked dead. And so I was just going to go right over it and kind of twist — it was still dying — caught me off guard. I swerved and I ran off the road. Nobody else was involved. The raccoon was already dead even, and they gave me a ticket for failure to maintain reasonable control of the vehicle. And so I thought, wow, it’s important enough for them to give me a ticket when I don’t hit a raccoon.
All that was left was pain in the end
But when this man drives into me — a human. I’m not important enough for them to give him a ticket. And that was really painful for me and what continued to be painful afterward is that then — I went home and, you know, inflammation takes some time to set in, and so I thought it was only my ankle, but by the end of that night, everything was in pain. I don’t remember caring at that moment. And for months afterward, the sensation, like someone had wrapped my torso in a metal band and that they were slowly heating it up and squeezing it at the same time.
I was fortunate enough to be a part of a community of folks, a friend of mine drove me to the emergency room the next day because by then it was very clear that I was hurt. And I remember sitting in the emergency room and I could not find a position in which I was not in pain. And that continued for years. For years — every time I would sit up I was in pain and in those early days, I remember — I went to teach my class the following Tuesday and I remember raising my arm to write something on the board.
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And I started crying right there in front of my students because I was in so much pain and still pushing to try to work and still pushing to try to do something that could matter to somebody — the moment when, you know, the circumstances surrounding it had suggested that at least to that police officer, at least that man that drove into me — that I didn’t matter.
What to do when you feel nothing’s going to work
Afia Ofori-Mensa: I want to matter (inaudible) to be doing something that was important. And so I experienced chronic pain — really acute, acutely in those first few months, and I tried everything, I went to massage therapy, I started getting acupuncture, I went to a physical therapist.
I went to a pain management specialist. They gave me injections in my back. And none of that helps for very long. And so someone said to me, I think it was the massage therapist said to me. She said, “You know, whenever I think of anything that happens with the spine, I think of a chiropractor. You should go to a chiropractor.” I went to a chiropractor. And he did an adjustment, and it was the first time that I experienced any sense of relief.
In months. Oh, this is the answer. This is how I’m finally going to be out of pain. I’m just going to come to the chiropractor until I don’t hurt anymore. I want that first time was good and with the second time, it was good. The third time I went, it didn’t help. I didn’t feel like at the end of that session than I had at the beginning. And I remember driving home. I remember exactly the intersection that I stopped at.
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And I thought, “Nothing’s going to work.” If this one thing that I found that makes me feel better doesn’t make me feel better anymore, then I’m never going to be out of pain again.
How Afia dealt and coped with physical pain
I remember thinking, “If this is what my body is now, this is — that doesn’t even feel like my body,” that just feels like a vessel filled with pain and I don’t want to be in my body anymore. I could not imagine going years and years of life feeling that way.
And it was the first time in my life that I ever had the inkling — the sensation, that I could understand why someone wouldn’t want to live anymore. Because being in that moment — if living meant feeling pain every single second. Then I didn’t want that anymore, and I remember when I had had experiences in the past when I had learned about suicide and I always thought, well, you know, there must be some moment when the person thinks, “Oh, but there are people love me, people care about me.”
If you can just remember in that moment that people love and care about you, then you’ll be fine. And I remember this profound experience of thinking there are people in the world who love me and care about me and would miss me and I didn’t care. I didn’t care about any of that because I was hurting so much that all I could think about was a lifetime of being in pain or an alternative to them and that was a scary thought.
Celebrating every moment when you feel OK
And so I went to therapy and in one of those very early sessions, she asked me, “Were there any moments when you’re not in pain?” And I said, “Very few,” and she said, “OK, but that means there are some. So when you’re not in pain, how do you spend those moments?” And I said, “I spend them — dreading, the next moment when I’ll be in pain.” And she said, “Well, that’s a shame. Because that means even when you’re not in pain or suffering.”
Afia Ofori-Mensa: So she said, “What if you were just to play with celebrating every moment you feel OK.
Instead of dreading the next moment when you won’t, just sit in that moment that you’re in, when you’re not feeling pain, celebrate every moment when you feel OK.” And so I went home — I tried it, and it changed my life, Francis, because when I came to realize was that I could apply that to anything.
It wasn’t just about this hot metal band around my middle, It wasn’t just about the fact that every time I sat in any chair in any position for two minutes — I was in terrible, excruciating pain — wasn’t worth it — it wasn’t just about that.
It was about anything I experienced in my life — that was difficult or painful — that I can apply the same principle of, rather than anticipating the next moment when that will happen again, I can just celebrate any moment when I feel OK. When I went back for the next session and I told her about the impact that it had and she was like, “So how are you feeling now?” And I said, “Well, I’m still scared.”
Confronting fear and loss with body pain
She said, “What are you scared of?” And I said, ‘‘I’m scared that my body will never go back to feeling the way that it did before.” She looked me square in the eye and she said, “Afia, your body will probably never go back to feeling the way that it did before.’’ Oh, and I cried. (inaudible). Probably for five minutes, sitting in her office. She held that space for me, she just sat while I cried — and when I was done. She said, ‘‘But that’s true of everybody — we’re all aging. None of our bodies are going to feel the way they did before.’’
You know what she said, you know, there are likely to be very few advantages to having been hit by a car. So if you ever experience any, I encourage you to take advantage of them. And so now, you know, whenever a friend says, ‘‘Oh, I’m moving.’’ You know, my cousin and his family just moved a couple of days ago. They said, ‘‘Oh, you want to come by and help us unpack boxes?’’
And I was like, “No, you know, I got a — I got a bad back.”
It’s like — that’s my excuse now. Any moment, you know, I have chronic pain. I can’t really lift any boxes. You know, I’ll come and sit and talk and hang out with you but I can’t really do that labor. But, you know, it was so many beautiful lessons rolled into one. And at the center of it, it was about being present with a moment of celebration — of not being present and aware when you’re feeling OK.
Accepting pain & suffering
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And it was about accepting that my body wasn’t likely ever to go back to feeling the way that it did before. But what was important, I think, was that my body was not likely to continue to hurt as much as it did in that moment, you know, and that turned out to be true, too, like — eight years later — eight and a half years later, I’m sitting here, it’s been longer than two minutes, I’m not in terrible, excruciating pain.
I got a special pillow. I probably couldn’t do this for two hours without hurting, you know, I spent a lot of time now on Zoom during this period of pandemic — when life has gone on to screen. And it does hurt — and in fact, the second time in my life ever that I had that experience, that feeling, that set of thoughts when I thought, ‘‘I’ve been such terrible pain right now that I can imagine why somebody wouldn’t want to live.’’ The second time — the first time that happened in the spring of 2012.
And the second time that happened was in the spring of 2020. Because, when the pandemic began, I live by myself and I had just started working at Princeton — maybe eight months prior — brand new here, still building community and living alone in an apartment. And we shifted into this world where everybody was talking about, ‘‘Oh, you know, just stay with the people in your household, just be in your household.’’ And my household is just me and —
Not knowing when’s the next opportunity to touch another human
the moment when I realized that I didn’t know when was the next time that I was going to be able to touch another human being. I slipped into a state of despair, I love logging on people through touch, you know, I love giving hugs, I love lifting up my nieces. There was an indeterminate period of time when I wasn’t going to be able to do any of those things again and that was scary to me. And in the midst of all that, because life had moved on to Zoom, I was spending eight hours a day sitting in front of my computer and all that pain came back — the physical pain, in the same moment of despair when I didn’t know when I was going to get to be in the presence of another human again.
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And I started to — you know, I slipped a bit back to that place — I felt that feeling. But the difference this time is that because I’ve had that experience of therapy all those years prior, I had all these tools where I could kind of pause and I could think, “OK, Afia, if are there any moments when you feel OK? What are you doing in those moments to celebrate those moments?” I also was able to draw on lessons that I have learned in the interim like — about gratitude. Not just accepting that this is the body that I live in now, that this is the experience that I had, but in fact, finding ways to feel thankful for it.
Feeling thankful for empathy
Afia Ofori-Mensa: I now have a source of empathy for people in pain: when my students are suffering, when they’re questioning their worth, when I encounter friends who are experiencing chronic pain for whatever reasons, when I come across people in my life who are in pain for different reasons all the time — I get that. In a way that I didn’t before and that I couldn’t have if this man had driven into me while I was walking across the street.
And it’s not just that I accept that; I feel thankful — I feel thankful for that source of empathy, I feel thankful for all the lessons that I have been able to learn since and so in this period of isolation — of starting off by feeling very lonely and not knowing when was the next time I’d be able to connect with other people. I paused and I thought, “What can I feel thankful for?” And actually, you know, social media made it very easy because they had all these friends — these academic friends who, you know, they’re trying to write articles and do their research and teach two or three courses and run the nine-year-old [to] school and take care of the three-year-old.
And they’re doing all the stuff. Oh, wow!
I don’t know [if] I need that. I’m just here in my apartment by myself. I get to eat what I want to eat, I get to sleep when I want to sleep, I could take a walk, when I want to take a walk. Nobody’s relying on me for home school. The moment I want to take a nap in the middle of the day and I don’t have any meetings at work — I can do that.
Self-care with pain and suffering
Afia Ofori-Mensa: You know, I’m the only one here and you know, it flipped it. And [I] thought, ‘‘Oh, I’m the only one here. What does that allow me to do?’’ And then so I have found that this year has turned out to be a year of a surprising amount of creativity and productivity for me — that I am generating new programming at work for Princeton. I am — I’m writing a book that I started writing on beauty pageants back in 2013, and I’m going to finish it next week.
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And so now I can be grateful — I could do something for myself. I could work on my book, I could be with my thoughts, I could gather the lessons of the year, and I could return to that really important set of lessons that I learned when I was hit by the car in 2012, which is celebrate every moment you feel OK. Our lives may never go back to being the way that they were before. But that was probably true anyway.
It’s just that we as a global community are experiencing an especially acute version of that. And so then what are the opportunities even in the midst of terrible loss, and grief, and pain — that is not affecting everybody equally. I don’t want to suggest that at all. It’s very different for very different people. And I — I sit in a lot of privilege. I have a lot of class privileges.
How can gratitude, acceptance, and celebration be expressed?
Afia Ofori-Mensa: I have a lot of other kinds of privilege between, that I get to experience this moment in that way. And so I want to take advantage of that to think about like — what are the opportunities for acceptance? What are the opportunities for gratitude? What are the opportunities even for celebration? In a time that otherwise feels like it’s taken us out of ourselves? And if it’s taken us out of ourselves, then who are or what else do we have the opportunity to be?
Francis Kong: Thank you for such a thoughtful sharing of your journey, and I love the reflection of how that incident essentially didn’t really change your life like you said — had an acute acceleration of what was already happening to you and everyone else, which is exactly a reflection of what’s going on right now. Our global community changes all the time because of COVID. We are now also experiencing an acute accelerated change as well, too. So what you went through prepared you apparently very well.
But we’re all going through right now.
Afia Ofori-Mensa: It really did. Yeah.
Francis Kong: That’s wonderful. We only have a couple of minutes left. Do you have any last words of wisdom for anyone out there listening, how they can also find their own sense of peace in events that might have happened in life that caused them to second guess and doubt themselves in the last minutes that we have?
Afia Ofori-Mensa: Yeah. So there [is] one key thing, and this is something that I came up with actually when I was in college before all of that happened. I call it the “cycle of non-regret.”
Cycle of non-regret
Afia Ofori-Mensa: And it’s in five steps: Step one is make the best decisions that you can with the information that you have at the time. Step two is — and this is a really important one — resist the urge to judge past you on the basis of information that present you now has. Step three is love yourself, love who you are, love who you’ve come to be. And step four, which is directly related to that is to recognize that you are only you, because everything that has happened in your life has happened in exactly the way and exactly the order that it did and so if you love yourself, you can only be grateful for all of that.
Then the next step is trust that — you know, out of the spirit of that love — trust that future. You can handle whatever decisions that present you make, whatever are the results or consequences of those decisions, future You can handle it and then it cycles back around to — then make the best decision you can with the information that you have.
Two real emotions: love and fear
That, for instance, is how I’m able not to regret that I stepped out into the street on that day — that got hit by the car because I didn’t know that was going to happen, because I love myself, I love who I am, and that has had everything to do with who I can be.
The other piece of this is there are two real emotions or categories of emotion under which everything in the universe falls — there’s love and there’s fear and the aspiration is always to make decisions and take actions in a spirit of love, and so when I think of the cycle of non-regret and regret is fear that’s projected into the past and so then the opposite of that is courage, because courage is love that’s projected into the future.
There is no need to regret anything in life
So if you can live in a place of love, if you can recognize the importance of courage, if you can have faith that future You can handle whatever current courageous You decides to do, then you can live a life without regret.
And that’s how I’ve been living for the past 20 years of my life. And I think it has everything to do with how I’ve been able to be who I am, do what I’ve done, accomplished what I’ve accomplished, and have the impact that I’ve been able to have in all the years since.
Francis Kong: Well, thank you for you. I love that. Unfortunately, we’re out of time at this point, but that couldn’t have been any better answer. I can think of myself. I’m going to basically preach that and share that with all of my students as well, too. Again, thank you for coming on to Imagine Talks. Always wonderful to hear your stories, always wonderful to see you [and] always wonderful to learn from you. Thank you for sharing all of your adventures — your lessons, especially from 2020.
And hopefully, I hope people will take on these visions and experiences that you shared and make [a] 2021 a much better year for everyone. So take care. Thank you so much. I can’t wait to see you the next time. OK?
Afia Ofori-Mensa: Always great to talk with you. Thank you.
Francis Kong: Take care. Buh-bye.
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