Very interesting article! However, I wondered about this sentence:
"These techniques can be valuable when suffering becomes genuinely dysfunctional."
How to know if your suffering is dysfunctional and keeping you stuck, or when it still has valuable information that needs to be processed and interpreted?
Good catch on that line Caitlin, it's a crucial distinction I should have expanded on.
If you can still ask "What is this trying to teach me?" and get meaningful answers that change how you see yourself or your situation, the pain is still functional, even if it's intense.
But if you ask that question and nothing comes back, or the pain is so overwhelming that you cannot engage with it at all, that is when relief techniques or outside support can help you return to a place where learning is possible.
The goal is to stay in the zone where discomfort can still communicate with you.
This is a very thought provoking post. Our relationship with pain is truly something we all deal with differently. What you wrote here is very true:
“The shattering of inadequate narratives creates space for more accurate, more resilient, more mature understandings of how life actually works. The person who has never experienced serious illness lives with unrealistic assumptions about their invulnerability. The person who has never been betrayed lives with naive assumptions about human nature. The person who has never failed lives with entitled assumptions about cause and effect.”
I love how you explained this. It’s something we don’t talk about enough. Perhaps it’s because many people do not know how to put their experience of pain into words.
Pain truly contributes towards building your character. I personally have noticed myself that characteristic traits of people that are arrogant/ entitled compared to kind/ forgiving can reveal a lot about a persons experiences in life.
You’re post reminded me of this quote I once read;
“A person that is strong in mind, is always gentle in nature”
Thankyou for such an insightful read.We run away from pain precisely because we dont understand what it means and what to do with it. That it has some important lessons to teach us, to make us stronger than ever hardly crosses one's mind unless someone tells them about pain's role in their lives. I will definitely meditate on what you have shared and learn to see pain and suffering in a new light.
Pain has been my greatest teacher. Resilience, compassion, wisdom, are the result of having stood in the fire of both emotional and physical pain. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the life lessons, the opportunities that came from pain and suffering.
Muchas gracias por la sabiduría, creo que en general estamos en una sociedad que nos enseña solo que el dolor es algo malo, y hay quienes sabemos en nuestro interior que es una alerta pero al menos no se cómo observarlo y estás herramientas son muy valiosas para contextualizar el dolor y darle una mirada práctica, ya que nadie nos enseña a lidiar con el dolor y tampoco sabemos como observarlo. Solo sabemos que duele ...
Very interesting article! However, I wondered about this sentence:
"These techniques can be valuable when suffering becomes genuinely dysfunctional."
How to know if your suffering is dysfunctional and keeping you stuck, or when it still has valuable information that needs to be processed and interpreted?
Good catch on that line Caitlin, it's a crucial distinction I should have expanded on.
If you can still ask "What is this trying to teach me?" and get meaningful answers that change how you see yourself or your situation, the pain is still functional, even if it's intense.
But if you ask that question and nothing comes back, or the pain is so overwhelming that you cannot engage with it at all, that is when relief techniques or outside support can help you return to a place where learning is possible.
The goal is to stay in the zone where discomfort can still communicate with you.
I agree with you
Thank you for your wisdom 😉
I agree with everything in this fantastic article, however, I still don’t like pain 🤣
So, so good!
This is a very thought provoking post. Our relationship with pain is truly something we all deal with differently. What you wrote here is very true:
“The shattering of inadequate narratives creates space for more accurate, more resilient, more mature understandings of how life actually works. The person who has never experienced serious illness lives with unrealistic assumptions about their invulnerability. The person who has never been betrayed lives with naive assumptions about human nature. The person who has never failed lives with entitled assumptions about cause and effect.”
I love how you explained this. It’s something we don’t talk about enough. Perhaps it’s because many people do not know how to put their experience of pain into words.
Pain truly contributes towards building your character. I personally have noticed myself that characteristic traits of people that are arrogant/ entitled compared to kind/ forgiving can reveal a lot about a persons experiences in life.
You’re post reminded me of this quote I once read;
“A person that is strong in mind, is always gentle in nature”
Thanks for sharing your words 💜
Thankyou for such an insightful read.We run away from pain precisely because we dont understand what it means and what to do with it. That it has some important lessons to teach us, to make us stronger than ever hardly crosses one's mind unless someone tells them about pain's role in their lives. I will definitely meditate on what you have shared and learn to see pain and suffering in a new light.
Pain has been my greatest teacher. Resilience, compassion, wisdom, are the result of having stood in the fire of both emotional and physical pain. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the life lessons, the opportunities that came from pain and suffering.
Thank you for speaking to this incredible truth.
Likewise. Witnessed lack of empathy has made me empathic. Witnessing explosive behavior has brought me the lesson of calm and stocism.
Pain is a catalyst for transformation. It enables you to understand your life better.
Thank you for such beautiful words! 🙏
In our moments of pain, we are given the gift of opportunity to learn. Thank you for this eloquent piece on how we can leverage our pain into purpose.
Very true. After months of pain, operations, permanent disability in 2023 and ongoing chronic pain today, I still remind myself each day:
• I’m not living in the terror Gaza or Ukraine.
• I don’t have terminal cancer.
• I don’t live in poverty.
I am lucky to have a beautiful family, a home, and a well-paid job.
I can enjoy the awe of this planet and its Nature.
I can freely write my opinions and ideas, on Substack.
Here’s my post:
https://open.substack.com/pub/paulwbmarsden/p/i-cant-run-anymore-but-i-remember?r=206izj&utm_medium=ios
I can’t run anymore but I dream of my marathon races.
One day, maybe, one day.
I keep dreaming…
https://open.substack.com/pub/paulwbmarsden/p/i-cant-run-anymore-but-i-remember?r=206izj&utm_medium=ios
It’s so sad that you have to re-educate people on the fact that pain is actually a signal and you’d better listen to it.
Muchas gracias por la sabiduría, creo que en general estamos en una sociedad que nos enseña solo que el dolor es algo malo, y hay quienes sabemos en nuestro interior que es una alerta pero al menos no se cómo observarlo y estás herramientas son muy valiosas para contextualizar el dolor y darle una mirada práctica, ya que nadie nos enseña a lidiar con el dolor y tampoco sabemos como observarlo. Solo sabemos que duele ...