How To Redefine Your Suffering
Have you ever met someone who’s never suffered?
“Suffering is no longer synonymous with the content of your pain. It is now synonymous with the postponement of living your life in the service of winning the struggle.” — Stephen Hayes
You and I, we both would prefer not to suffer. But what if our focus on this preference drags us away from living our most fulfilling lives?
What if, by focusing on making our pain go away, we postpone the things that matter most?
Our culture teaches us that all discomfort is “bad” and that we should do our best to get rid of it. Look at the painkiller adds. Their protagonists are usually people for whom their discomfort stands in the way of living a worthwhile life.
The approach those adds promote is that first, you need to eliminate the pain. Only when you succeed at this are you free to go and do what matters.
But what if assigning such a severe role to our pain is precisely what makes us suffer?
To realize our condition, we’re wise to see the difference between pain and suffering. It’s not an obvious discernment because most of us were taught to believe that the two are intrinsically connected.
But haven’t you had the experience of enduring pain while at the same time feeling a deeper sense of joy underneath? If you can’t think of an example from your life, imagine a marathon runner who’s only a mile away from the finish line.
She’s extremely tired and feels very real, physical pain in her muscles. Yet, knowing that she’s so close to completing the race makes her heart sing. Even though she’s experiencing pain, she’s not suffering. That’s because her mind accepts the discomfort in the name of achieving something important.
The runner would actually suffer if she gave up the race because of the pain. In her mind, suffering is synonymous with the postponement of her goal due to pain — rather than with the experience of the pain.
What if you could embrace the mindset of a runner in your life?
Enduring discomfort without turning it into suffering comes more naturally for people who are driven by clear values and goals. In other words, it’s easier to accept physical or psychological pain if you know what you’re doing it for.
The happiest people I met are not those whose lives have been the easiest. Rather, they are those who focus on creating a life they want — instead of the obstacles that could potentially stop them.
This is not to say that you should ignore your difficulties or pretend they don’t exist. Carl Jung said that “what you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.” This is confirmed by modern psychological research which shows that it’s impossible to simply “block out” thoughts or feelings we don’t like. Our mind’s innate design doesn’t allow this option.
This suggests a new approach, which is a middle way between ignoring our pain and letting it direct our lives. This approach is encapsulated in ACT, the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. It promotes focusing on the kind of life we want to live, without pretending that our pain doesn’t exist.
ACT encourages you to take three steps to redefine the role pain plays in your life.
- Look at your difficulty with acceptance, but from a distance. This way you can realize that you are not your pain — you simply experience it.
- Look at the values and goals that you’ve been postponing until your difficulty goes away. Then ask yourself: “What if it doesn’t go away? Does it mean that I’ll keep postponing what matters to me forever?”
- If and when you conclude that living your life fully is more important than making your pain disappear, take appropriate steps. You may visualize your difficulty as a rock that’s awkward to carry. However awkward it is, you can still pick it up and walk towards your goal with it.
You and I would prefer not to suffer. For some reason, we cling to the wishful thinking of never experiencing any difficulty again. But what if both pain and suffering are internal parts of human experience?
There are reasons to believe that to suffer is more “normal” than to be free of it. When you think of all the people you’ve met in your life — can you recall one person who’s never suffered?
Accepting that it is in human nature to suffer may be a relief in itself. You may not be able to stop the war — but you’ll at least leave the battlefield.
Moving away from the battlefield means that you can engage in something that matters to you more than the war. Even if you still hear the sounds of the fight in the background, at least your hands are free to do other things.
At least, you’re not holding on to the sword anymore.