How Do We Embrace Pain and Suffering for What They Can Teach Us?
We can choose to learn from pain and suffering.
Everyone experiences pain. Everyone experiences suffering. Not just a few people – EVERYONE.
Pain and suffering are a part of the life experience for everyone everywhere.
Why? Because both are channels for growth. Pain and suffering almost always suck at the time of their occurrence. But afterward, they can teach us amazing and incredibly useful things about life, the Universe, and everything.
Pain and suffering are two very different animals. Both can impact us mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Each can be incredibly unpleasant – to the point of disabling us in one way or another.
We get to choose how pain and suffering will ultimately impact us.
At the time that whatever happens to cause us pain and/or suffering happens – it simply is. After that visceral immediacy, however, we get to choose how to proceed.
What can pain and suffering teach us? How do we embrace this? Before I get into this let’s better define pain and suffering.
What is pain?
Pain is the word that describes a hurt you receive. It can be physical, mental, emotional, and/or spiritual.
- Physical pain includes muscle aches, broken bones, cuts, abrasions, arthritis, and any other injury to the physical body – temporary or chronic.
- Mental pain includes self-doubt, self-esteem issues, questions of self-worth, and failing to measure up to expectations both internal and external.
- Emotional pain includes heartbreak, lost love, fear, and anytime we experience strong negative emotions as a result of random happenstance and more.
- Spiritual pain includes loss of faith, loss of hope, and questioning the purpose of life, the universe, and everything.
We can experience any combination of these together. All are equally unpleasant, uncomfortable, and can range from dull and nagging to sharp and excruciating. Then, just to add insult to injury, they can fluctuate all over the place.
Pain can be a matter of thought, feeling, or both. But it can also be a reminder that we’re endangering ourselves and should step back.
Ever feel a muscle in your body stretch in a painful way – and realize from that you should pull back? That’s pain warning you to be more cautious.
Pain is utterly unavoidable. Shit will happen in your life that will cause pain on one or more of the four abovementioned levels. It’s part of life.
And it can be a learning experience that can change us for the better. But that’s a choice.
Before I get into what pain can teach us – let’s look closer at suffering.
What is suffering?
Suffering is the result of pain.
Mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, or all of the above – suffering is how pain remains within us.
To be fair – chronic pain is horrific. Constant discomfort, dull or sharp, sucks. Too many people live in chronic pain – and it causes them no end of suffering.
Most people I know in this situation, however, do what they can to overcome that pain. Many don’t show it at all. But there are going to be days they can’t resist it – and they succumb to that pain and suffer.
That’s not the kind of suffering I’m going to get into here. The suffering I am going to examine is chosen.
Yes, chosen. When we get dumped, fired, lose somebody we love, fail at a task, or otherwise experience a painful thing – by-and-large not physically – how long we hold onto it is how long we choose to suffer.
Pain happens in its various forms – and hurts when it does. But after that initial hurt, we get to choose how long to suffer from it.
Some people suffer from a painful experience for their entire life. A loss, a terrible happening, an injustice, or some other painful experience dictates who, what, where, how, and why they are – as a victim.
You might think that’s unfair of me to categorize loss in that way. Perhaps. But since it’s something everyone everywhere experiences – including me – this is what I know.
How long we hold onto the suffering we experience is frequently a choice. This is where we can realize what pain and suffering can teach us.
What did pain and suffering teach me?
Over 20 years ago I was hit by a car crossing the street. This caused me numerous injuries – and pain and suffering mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
When it happened, however, I developed an amazing clarity about life, the Universe, and everything. This was when I learned the 3 ways we can choose to live:
- Let life live you. Just go with the flow and let whatever happens, happen, at its pace (sometimes positive, sometimes negative, seldom intentional).
- Curl up in a ball and await death. Be a victim. Expect the worst. Let the universe fuck with you and lose hope (mostly negatively directed, semi-intentional).
- Grab life like a bull by the horns and go for a ride. Make choices and decisions to live on your own terms (mostly positively directed, intentional).
It’s perfectly natural to experience each of these during our lives. Everyone will, everyone does. But we also get to choose what to strive towards and work on.
When I was broken with an unknown recovery time ahead of me – and a lot of pain – I learned this truth. I saw that I could use the experience to grow.
Thus, I worked to consciously create my reality. I pushed every therapy, envisioned nothing but total recovery, and recognized that suffering was a choice for me to make.
My recovery was near total. Today, apart from titanium in my shoulder and some impressive scars – I am healed and whole.
Pain and suffering taught me how consciousness creates reality, and that I could choose my path in life. Embracing my pain and suffering taught me multiple invaluable life lessons – and more.
Your education need not be so dramatic or traumatic
We all get to make choices and decisions for our life experiences.
You will have pain in your life. It might be mental, emotional, physical, spiritual – some or all of these. But it’s unavoidable and an experience that you will have.
When it happens, it will be unpleasant, and it will suck at the time. Soon after that initial experience and reaction, however, you get to choose what’s next.
Yes, you get to choose if you will suffer and for how long.
And you might suffer for a time. That’s natural. But then, you can see what that pain and suffering might teach you. Embracing this and taking the proffered lessons might make it easier to deal with the next similar situation – and any other painful experiences that occur in the future.
This is, frankly, a matter of positivity. Why? Because we get to decide to choose to learn from pain and grow or let it rule us and suffer. Pain and suffering can teach us – when we’re open to their lessons and embrace them for what they might be. This often means finding the silver lining to the stormy clouds in our lives.
Pain and suffering cannot be avoided (which toxic positivity might suggest. Which is why that’s not genuine positivity). But they can be incredible teachers of life, the Universe, and everything. They can be paths to amazing growth, change, discovery, and greater understanding.
Embracing pain and suffering for what they can teach us isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of our thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct our actions.
When we recognize and acknowledge that pain and suffering are unavoidable, we can see how they can be used as life lessons. Knowing that we get to choose to suffer or choose to grow when we experience pain – we can be more accepting of pain and suffering and recognize them for the teachers they can be.
This empowers us – and in turn, our empowerment can empower others around us. That can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Choosing for ourselves employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for our lives.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, we can explore and share where we are between the extremes and how that impacts us here and now.
Lastly, the better aware we are of ourselves in the now, the more we can do to choose and decide how our life experiences will be. When that empowers us, it can also open those around us to their own empowerment. And that is, to me, a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this ride with me.
This is the four hundred and forty-seventh entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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