Suffering

First of all, I do not like it. But I do not think of physical suffering as punishment for spiritual shortcomings. The explanation is not as complicated as that and physical suffering is not a part of a spiritual experience. That is not to say that sufferers cannot grow spiritually by maintaining a spiritual trajectory in spite of physical obstacles.

I was in a meeting yesterday, and my superior, Elizabeth, continued to speak, even when someone had triggered an alarm in the hallway where the meeting was being held. The alarm was so loud that it became difficult to hear anything Elizabeth was saying. However, she never paused or acknowledged the alarm in any way. Even though I was missing some of her valuable instruction, I saw great leadership in her ability to overlook obstructions. In her mind, she had a meeting and she had topics to cover and she only had a few minutes to cover what she needed to cover. An 80db bell was not going to break her concentration.

In this case, Elizabeth was demonstrating good leadership. In the same way, when we are challenged with physical suffering, we find strength by ignoring (to a degree) what we cannot change. The noise of suffering is not there to deter you; it is there because suffering is a natural side-effect of having a physical body. Suffering is also a side-effect of being the protagonist in a specific, life-story… yours.

Every pain, from a stubbed toe to a broken heart, can be tolerated best with less attention. There is nothing wrong with venting with some chosen words. And there is nothing wrong with getting some ice and trying to keep the swelling down. There is nothing wrong with talking about events which cause grief and other types of emotional pain. However, intense focus on any kind of pain will increase its presence in your life-story. The same is true of intense focus on good experiences.

Pain is natural and so are weeds; don’t water what you don’t want more of. Everybody hurts. There just isn’t any way to completely avoid pain. It won’t help to pretend it is not there; in fact, ignoring pain (completely) can be the wrong reaction. Flames are not only hot and painful; they are harmful if you choose to hold your hand over one, pretending it doesn’t hurt. By all means, react to pain and steer away from the source of it when you can. Once you’ve done what you can to correct the problem, turn your focus back to your personal growth and joy. Maintaining too much focus on any area of pain can cancel the good which always comes to your rescue.

When good comes to the rescue, it makes no attempt to convince you that your pain is not real and valid; good only serves to help you through the bad. Something as simple as a flower can be more effective than medicine. For this reason, caring people will often send flowers to someone grieving due to the loss of a loved one.

When we experience emotional pain as a result of the loss of a loved one, the pain sets off very significant alarms which are impossible to ignore. The alarms are not silenced by considering other loved ones who are yet alive, but you will make it through a crisis like this by bringing your focus back to your living loved ones as often as you can. In most cases, your departed loved one would want you to look for relief in this way.

I am not saying that you should deal with pain by ignoring it (completely); I am only suggesting a thought exercise, where you turn your attention to something good when possible. In many cases, you will grow spiritually in spite of pain. The heavy lifting of a heavy heart, an illness or an injury, can create some spiritual increase.

You will meet people who have had very difficult experiences and yet maintain very good attitudes. Those people are usually very inspiring. They can be very encouraging. It was not their difficulty that gave them their strength; it was their ability to overcome evil with good.

Pain is an alarm. Intense focus on the alarm can be as harmful as ignoring it. Pain will be there from time to time, but you’ll make it through the pain if you will give at least some attention to the good in your life-story. Day by day, your heart and your body will likely improve if you can give some focus to what you are grateful for. Less focus on what causes pain does not invalidate the cause, but it allows you to better endure the pain.

On the other side of pain, the cause will remain. You can keep these causes close to your heart without holding on to all of the pain. There can be extreme value in a cause; even as the pain subsides.

When a loved one dies, consider a donation or volunteering in an area associated with their cause of death. Many people do these things as a way of bringing the cause forward without giving their undivided attention to the pain. This helps to honor the memory of a loved one, and it helps to heal a broken heart to some degree. The question might be: what good thing can I do now that a bad thing has happened?