For one thing, while pain is unpleasant it is also a method of familiarizing the self against the edges of quickened consciousness. Any heightened sensation, pleasant or unpleasant, has a stimulating effect upon a consciousness to some degree. It is a strong awareness of activity and life.
Where the stimulus may be extremely annoying, and humiliatingly unpleasant, certain portions of the psychological framework accept it indiscriminatingly because it is a sensation, and a vivid one. This acquiescence to even painful stimuli is a basic part of the nature of consciousness, and a necessary one.
Even a quick and automatic rejection or withdrawal from such stimulus is in itself a way by which consciousness knows itself. The ego may attempt to ignore or escape from such experiences, but the basic nature of action itself is the knowing of itself in all aspects; and in a basic manner, in a very basic and deep manner, action does not differentiate between pleasant, painful or enjoyable actions.
These differentiations come much later and on another level, and in a later evolutionary development. But because the personality is composed of action, the personality also contains within it this characteristic of action, in that it accepts all sensations as expressions of itself, and does not discriminate between stimuli. Action accepts all stimuli in an affirmative manner.
……All this is basic knowledge, if you would understand why the personality accepts even an impeding action, or pain or illness, as a part of itself, despite the ego’s resistance to pain.
Seth spends a few sessions taking about the nature of action and at some point later ties this topic to the reasons we accept pain: "This acquienscence to even painful stimuli is a basic part of the nature of consciousness, and a necessary one."
"Action does not differentiate between pleasant, painful or enjoyable actions."