When we aren’t happy with our current situation or self, we will float back to a time that was more acceptable, enjoyable or pleasing to our mind (or skip forward to a future that would be more acceptable, enjoyable or pleasing). That is to say because our mind doesn’t like suffering.
We resist suffering as a culture and our mind as a mechanism resists it, too. As a result, we take our agitation and pain and try to push it away by waltzing off into the future or galivanting back to the past—anything to avoid the situation and discomfort we face today.
We find something more desirable and attach ourselves to it— never thinking that what we find in the moment, no matter how displeasing, is exactly what it’s meant to be and what we actually need. Suffering is not meant to shy away from, think our way out of or numb ourselves from; suffering holds an equally important role as any other joyful time we might rather experience.
the importance of suffering
Why, you ask, is suffering important? Because it not only holds a pot of golden lessons deep within its depths but suffering itself is an important part of life; it holds as much value as anything else we experience. Because we project judgment onto it and label it as “bad,” we resist it—falsely thinking it’s not something we want to deal with. Yet, just as any part of life (transitory as it is), the pain of suffering will pass at some point.
“What we fear more than suffering itself are the feelings it is laden with.”
What we fear more than suffering itself are the feelings it is laden with—painful feelings. Those are the feelings we think will swallow us whole in one gulp. But whatever the feeling is and however awful it is to face, isn’t something to fear.
Feelings are to be welcomed with open arms—given a seat at our table because of their inherent value to us. Feelings show us what we are made of; they help us remember we are alive—that we are human beings with the capacity to feel a huge range of emotions. Those emotions are not only a beautiful thing but an important aspect of the experience of humanity itself.
Feelings also hold vital facts that provide us with information we can take and apply to better our lives and learn about ourselves in the process.
how we respond
We have visceral responses as humans and when things aren’t going the way we deemed them necessary to be satisfactory or “good enough,” we may have a response to it in order to say “this is not something I like or choose to experience.” Because we are vastly more intricate than our thinking mind, we feel something in response to that thought. Therein lies the suffering; our mind has decided this is not what I want, so we think, “it’s not ideal and I don’t like it.”
When these thoughts arise and have built up enough momentum over days or months, we will have feelings in relation to said thoughts. Think of the child who doesn’t get exactly what they want after they’ve decided it’s what they have to have in that moment. They throw a huge fit; the mind activates the reptilian brain which sets off the limbus system and when they do not get what they want the emotional response to this outrage is screaming and kicking and crying. It makes no sense given that all they may have wanted is a piece of candy; but to the child that has decided they want the candy and it is all they can focus on, the reality of not having it becomes bigger than the candy itself. It is about getting the thing they want and satisfying the ego.
the reward system
We grow into adults but we never grow out of the brain we had as children that is wired with a reward system and an ego that must have what it wants and has decided will make it all “ok” to it. The issue with being an adult and still living with this system in place is we don’t usually break down in response to not getting what we want or having our way. We might show a small token of sadness or be upset for a minute but we shove down the elicited response from our disapprove and disappointment and dissatisfaction with not getting our way. Enough of this happens over time that we’ve essentially shut down the little kid inside who is not able to show emotion and reveal how very upset they are because hey it’s not appropriate to break down and cry over the milkshake we couldn’t have.
Just because we don’t feel the emotions doesn’t mean they aren’t there; we’ve only suppressed them for the time being. After we have successfully shut our emotions down, the build up becomes quite intense. If we find out selves in a much more precarious situation and it’s no longer the milkshake we are not crying over but something much larger in scale: losing a job, being stuck in an uncomfortable situation, losing a loved one, or any other undesirable circumstance, our thinking mind, the ego developed from childhood, will likely be throwing a major tantrum inside our heads with many thoughts that run rampant and we will one day succumb to the feelings that we are naturally inclined towards as humans. These situations involve such bouts of suffering because we didn’t get what we wanted and what we thought would keep us safe or lost something we value or love; we’ve been told no or have had something taken away and merely because use we look like a grownup on the outside doesn’t mean we act like one on the inside. We will be upset and we will want to kick and scream and we have absolutely no reason not to so long as we aren’t injuring ourselves or others.
We can’t get out of the human experience and we can’t outsmart our emotions. We are still the kid inside who wanted candy but couldn’t get it. Our ego doesn’t evolve even if our intellect does: the part of the brain that responds to things outside our control including thoughts the mind thinks is still the same brain we had as children. It’s still the same brain our ancestors had and while it’s function was created for reasons not relevant to us today, we still use it to access emotion. We still respond to changes - abrupt or planned or unplanned - as the child once did. And by golly we still do not like when things do not go our way or something or someone we love is taken from us. And to not feel what we otherwise would or avoid suffering they stems from our circumstances is quite frankly a disservice to our human nature. We aren’t bottles meant to continually be poured into with this emotion or that. If we don’t feel our emotions, we won’t empty any out and will meanwhile fill the bottle fuller until it’s so full it’s overflowing. At which point we are usually, finally, willing to let out some of the angst; anger or sadness so we can breath and create some space in us for something else to fill in. We must embrace the painful feelings to free us from carrying them and create space for other feelings. Ones we might want more of like joy.
Suffering has its place in life and is to be embraced as any other part of our experience. The suffering we experience tends to pass more quickly if we look it onto the eye and allow the emotions to come up and find out what this situation is trying to teach us. And beyond anything situational in our personal life, it’s here to reveal that this situation isn’t meant to be resisted just because it’s not what we want. We have to find peace in our situation even though it isn’t what we would choose because it’s what we are experiencing— we might as well make peace with it. Or we will put suffering onto suffering by our response. Maybe this isn’t ok to our mind and maybe we want something entirely different and maybe given the chance we would make changes but right now as it is exactly at this moment in time, it is what it is so why not embrace, accept and welcome it. Whatever it is will pass. While we wait let’s not resist things as they are just because our mind has decided to judge it as something not ok or good enough or what we wanted. We aren’t three anymore and while we have every right to our feelings, we can put down the thoughts of judgment and decide to be happy anyway.
Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself.
-Paulo Coehlo