Pain, like joy, comes to us in the most primal way. It carries very important lessons that serve to guide each step of our journey.
However, we often turn pain into suffering. In a bitter and eternal sip that we drink in an aggressive and fatal way. We make the situation worse, because somehow we desperately seek more suffering than we already face.
SUFFERING IS AN EXTENSION OF PAIN, NOT PAIN ALONE.
It's not bad to feel nostalgic, or want to be alone with our pain. On the contrary, it is sometimes necessary. Drink a coffee alone, enjoy that moment of recognition with our deepest intimacy or that meeting with our own humanity.
The most disturbing aspect, and one that generates even more suffering than the one we have already experienced, is the weight we carry as we climb this steeply inclined mountain that, from time to time, we choose. We add this weight when, for example, we say that this sadness will last forever, that it is infinite and that we are at the mercy of its will.
Experiencing pain is a process of growth.
However, we have good news: we can take advantage of this extra suffering, and even better, we can use it as a growth process that exponentially increases our wisdom in life.
But in what way? When we go through a personal development, through which so many restless minds have passed, we reach a wisdom that allows us to see more often that pain is human and inseparable from life, but that suffering is an artifice that we use, and of which we can deprive ourselves. .
1. It is necessary to recognize the pain
We need to identify our suffering. Knowing if it is a pain that is influencing our life on a psychic, physical, social or existential level... Pain that is divided into several types, and that we must be able to recognize, observe and let go of it there for a moment to have that special meeting that we talked about earlier.
2. It is necessary to have an honest dialogue with pain
To start a conversation with pain, we must make it very clear that there is a problem. Something is disturbing our peace of mind. And for that reason, we must understand where this feeling comes from and why it exists.
Answering that question, we will already have a great success. However, you have to be honest and listen to what your pain wants to tell you. It's not worth running away or listening to the answer in half. It is necessary to listen to it in every way and with the greatest possible sincerity, because the pain undresses and discovers itself.
3. Don't turn it into suffering
“Pain can damage a part of our body. Suffering has the power to hurt the inner self.” An accurate sentence, because suffering has the power to block our mind, and consequently, to invalidate it.
We transform our pain into suffering the moment we project it in time, and we give it an infinite duration, with a catastrophic and hopeless message for ourselves.
4. We must be responsible for it
This does not mean that we should blame ourselves, that guilt that, instead of giving peace, completely eradicates it. Being responsible for our pain implies recognizing what we are doing to increase it and when a light drizzle can turn into a great flood.
Understand that we can help each other or ask for help to manage this pain in the best possible way. Transferring our responsibility to others is also a useless attitude that will end up causing another pain.
5. Get rid of pain without putting it aside
With the previous steps, we have already learned a lot. They allow us to regain that peace that we couldn't have because we were putting off our pain more and more. The essential thing is to have a face-to-face confrontation with that feeling.
Maybe we can soothe him with something that will help you and wake you up to life. Everyone is unique and individual, and everyone knows what can help to improve or not. There are no equally effective solutions for everyone, as well as no magic bullets. It is a process that everyone must live.
6. Mature with it (or in spite of it)
It is necessary to understand that we are more than our own pain. This means that we must accept that we are not her, we are a set of thoughts and various other feelings, that she has nothing to do with.
We are more than that! It means that we must recognize that we have more powerful resources and that we must discover — and use them — in order to be able to deal with this difficult but human transition, which is the passage from pain to growth.
So, we invite all people who are going through a difficult time to listen to each other with the necessary honesty, to accept their pain responsibly, and not pass it on to others, and to hug. From beginning to end, in this growth process that is our life.
Written by Amanda Magliaro of Team Me Without Borders.
