To start a dialogue with suffering, it must be clear that pain warns us that something in our life is not going right.
Last update: April 13, 2022
Pain is inherent in life. It is a part of it in the same way as joy and happiness. We tend to think it is a whim of fate, but it is nothing more than an extension of our existence. That is why we cannot avoid it and any effort to do so will be exhausting and useless.
Pain, like joy, brings us closer to our most primary essence. Both of them they give us the most important life lessons and guide our steps.
But many times we turn pain into suffering. In a bitter and eternal drink that we also drink in an aggressive and morbid way. Somehow, it is as if we are desperately seeking more suffering than what already exists.
Suffering is a further addition to pain, not pain itself
It's not bad to be homesick or want to be alone with your pain. Sometimes it is even necessary. Drinking a coffee alone, that moment of encounter with one's most solitary intimacy. The encounter with one's own humanity.
The most disturbing aspect, and which causes further suffering, is the weight we add to ourselves choosing to climb a steep mountain. For example, when we repeat to ourselves that sadness will last forever.
Turn pain into growth
But there is good news: we can reverse that suffering, even better we can turn it into a life lesson that exponentially increases our existential wisdom.
How? José Antonio Garcia-Monge, one of the psychologists and people who most influenced my life, explained it in one of his books.
When we face that path through which so many restless minds have passed, we reach a wisdom that allows us to verify that pain is human and inseparable from the act of living.
Likewise, it becomes clear that suffering is an artifice that we add and that we can get rid of.
1. Recognize it
We need to identify our suffering. Know if it is a pain that affects mentally, physically, socially, existentially, etc.
There are several types and we must knowing how to recognize them, look at them and encourage that special encounter we were talking about earlier.
2. Have an honest dialogue with suffering
To start a dialogue with suffering, it must be clear that pain warns us that something in our life is not going right.
Something is interrupting our tranquility. That is why we need to understand where this pain comes from and why it appears.
By answering these questions we have already reached a great milestone. But to ask ourselves these questions we need to be honest and listen to what this pain wants to tell us.
It is not worth running away in terror, nor listening to it halfway. We must listen to it with all our senses and with the utmost sincerity possible because pain strips us and discovers us.
3. Don't turn it into suffering
As Garcia-Monge says “The pain can burn a part of our body. Suffering has the power to deteriorate the whole person".
Suffering has the power to completely block our minds, thus making us incapable.
We transform our pain into suffering the moment we project it into time, endow it with an infinite permanence or magnify it with catastrophic and hopeless messages.
4. Take responsibility for transforming the pain
This doesn't mean blaming ourselves. Taking responsibility for your pain comes through recognizing what we do to amplify it.
What makes it grow, what makes a light rain turn into a flood.
Putting one's responsibilities on others is once again a useless exercise which will eventually generate more pain. Indeed, it is one of the deceptions that tend to survive in the shortest possible time.
5. Get rid of suffering without changing its place
With the above steps we will have already achieved enough, as they offer a peace that we do not find when we put off the appointment with pain indefinitely. A face-to-face meeting alone.
Maybe we can appease it and each person is unique and knows what can help them or not. There are no equally effective solutions for everyone, nor miracle wands. Living also means this.
6. Transform the pain to grow (despite this)
“Existentially that we are greater than our own pain “, Says GarcÃa-Monge. Once again, a sentence that prompts me to write. Being greater than our pain implies that we are NOT solely and exclusively our pain.
It involves acknowledging that we have resources that we must discover and use to help us and accompany us in this difficult but very human passage, thanks to which it is possible to transform pain into growth.
Conclusions
We invite all people who are going through a bad time to listen to each other with the honesty that this requires, to accept what is theirs and not others, to hug each other. After all, in this consists the path of growth of life.
