Last update: 17 September, 2017
Sometimes life hurts us… and sometimes it hits so hard that getting back up seems difficult. And it is right when we live aexperience painful that we feel somehow pushed towards intense emotional processes. Processes in which we have ended up due to the inertia of the situation, but which require a lot of strength to get out of them. Otherwise we end up being consumed by bitterness and pain.
Getting stuck in pain, in fact, is a personal choice. And in this way, stuck in suffering, we avoid embarking on the inner journey that culminates with acceptance, with the serenity of understanding and with personal evolution.
“Pain is not meant to make us suffer. Pain serves to make us aware. And when you are aware, bad luck disappears "
-Osho-
Pain is inevitable, suffering is not ...
Both pain and suffering are part of life. It should be noted that many times we use these two terms interchangeably. However, in order to manage them correctly, it is important to understand the difference.
Pain, in its psychological dimension, is an emotion that can arise in the presence of certain situations or problems. It affects physically, emotionally and mentally, and lasts until the person suffering from it is able to recover. In this sense, pain implies acceptance and contact with what we feel. It must also be said that the duration of the pain is proportional to the importance that the event that caused it has for us.
“Once past, we tend to forget the pain. In any case, advances in science, thanks to anesthetics and analgesics, have made us less used to pain than our ancestors. This justifies the fact that we fear him more and more ”.
Suffering, for its part, goes a little further. When we are unable to accept reality and continue our life normally, suffering appears. This state will repeatedly lead us to thoughts and emotions that will make us unbalanced and can make us sick. Suffering, therefore, becomes a useless consequence of pain.
"In the middle of winter, I finally learned that I had an invincible summer inside me"
-Albert Camus-
It must be said that suffering it acquires much more intensity and lasts much longer than emotional pain, as it can continue indefinitely. For example, pain is inevitable when you lose a loved one. If this wound does not heal and close, suffering sets in, impeding acceptance and growth.
Growth through pain
Post-traumatic growth occurs when the person accepts what happened and rebuilds his or her beliefs. This is a similar process to rebuilding a house after an earthquake. Following a painful event, we have the opportunity to think about how we want to rebuild our life.
On the other hand, these new beliefs that we add to our mental schemes promote the development of resilience. Likewise, during this rebuilding process, we generally discover our strength and aspects of ourselves that were previously unknown to us.
"Look for a place inside you where there is joy and this joy will erase the pain"
-Joseph Campbell-
The truth is that the only thing that has the power to make us unlucky it is our own attitude. According to psychotherapist Joan Garriga, any loss can be transformed into an opportunity to grow as people, to relieve ourselves and to untie ourselves from affections and identifications.
The great risk that one runs during painful processes is that of not overcoming them and stabilizing oneself in existential positions that feed suffering: complaining, victimhood, revenge, rigidity, pride ... In this sense it should be noted that pain is a process inherent in existence and it is important to grow, to understand what we live in order to derive greater enrichment.
"I was lucky in life, nothing was easy for me"
-Sigmund Freud-
And along the way you learn ...
You especially learn from what is painful and can ultimately cause suffering. When we are in contact with the pain more heartbreaking, we become aware of our fragility, but at the same time we find ourselves in a position that allows us, more than any other, to know our greatness. Our value.
And it is during the journey that you learn that everything changes, that the sun always shines again after the sky has clouded over, with the beauty and strength of the new dawns. It is now that we discover the strength we have within us, overcoming a painful path and the inertia that led us to follow it.
In the path of pain it is also observed that a new order always emerges from chaos. A new order that has in itself a teaching and an experience to continue to progress, with greater lightness, with more wisdom, with more serenity and awareness of the fact that painful periods have within themselves the potential to be periods of great transformation ... and why not, of great opportunities.
"The most beautiful people I have met are those who have known defeat, suffering, struggle, loss, and have found their own personal way to rise from the abyss"
-Elisabeth Kubler Ross-
