Bobbi

We’re on a journey, you and I.

We accomplished our first step during my last post when we took an unwavering look at this formula: “When _______ happens, then I’ll feel better/be happier/consider myself successful.

We realized that this isn’t the best way to live our lives, because it keeps us waiting for the next thing to happen rather than living a rich, meaningful life right now. We decided to begin our journey by answering the questions, “What am I doing? And why?”

In order to answer those questions, we need to look at our goals and values.

In our American culture, it’s easy to get caught up in goals-based living as represented by the when-then formula above. Goals are useful. They help us stay on track and move forward in a positive direction. But goals alone don’t answer the questions, “What am I doing? And why?” We must examine the relationship between our goals and our values. [Read more…] about Naming your values: The compass for a rich, meaningful life

Hi, it’s Bobbi here.

I just wanted to let you know that Bounce looks a little funky right now because I’m in the middle of switching hosting companies and we’re having some technical difficulties. All of my content and posts are here, though, so feel free to read to your heart’s content! I’m just trying to get all the cool stuff on the right side of the page back!

This is what happens when you have a therapist try to do tech stuff!

Thanks for your patience!

Pain is a relatively objective, physical phenomenon; suffering is our psychological resistance to what happens. Events may create physical pain, but they do not in themselves create suffering. Resistance creates suffering. Stress happens when your mind resists what is… The only problem in your life is your mind’s resistance to life as it unfolds. ~ Dan Millman

I think suffering might be unnecessary.

I think pain, both physical and emotional, is a natural, unavoidable aspect of being human, but suffering is something we bring on ourselves.

And I wonder what you think.

Let’s look under the hood of pain and suffering and see what we find.

The difference between pain and suffering

You might be reading this post because something has gone wrong in your life and it is causing you discomfort, distress, or even trauma.

It’s painful.

Perhaps emotionally, perhaps physically, or maybe even both, but it hurts.

And we don’t like to be hurt.

It’s hard-wired into our brains to move away from pain rather than toward it.

When we were children and accidentally touched the hot stove, we quickly formulated a rule: I must do everything I can to stay away from hot stoves.

It’s the same with emotional pain. We have a knee-jerk reaction to the hot stove of our negative feelings which is to move away from them as quickly as possible.

We just do not like to feel bad.

However, in this moving away we sometimes set up a condition for ourselves called suffering.

Let’s look at the difference between pain and suffering.

Pain is a natural condition whether it is emotional or physical. We touch the hot stove or go through the breakup of a relationship and it hurts.

Pain is a cue that something is wrong in the body and/or the mind.

We need pain in order to function well in the world.

Suffering is a choice

Suffering is more of a choice than pain.

Suffering is what happens when we have an expectation about how things should turn out or when we put a judgment value on pain.

You’ve probably heard a phrase similar to “Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.” That’s because, while pain is a natural part of our lives, suffering is something we create around the idea of pain.

American meditation instructor Shinzen Young has developed a formula for suffering:

Suffering = Pain x Resistance

With this simple equation, you can see that resistance to pain only multiplies our suffering. If we give pain a value of 1 and resistance a value of 2, we experience suffering as a value of 2.

But if we resist so much that the value of resistance becomes 10, now our suffering increases to 10 as well.

It makes sense: the more we resist, the more suffering we will experience.

But what if we don’t resist at all? What if our resistance value is equal to zero?

Then our suffering will be zero as well.

The pain is still there, but the added suffering is gone.

Reducing resistance

We are used to resisting. It’s a normal human reaction to the inevitability of pain. But it also increases our suffering.

So what to do?

The first thing that must happen is to become aware that you are resisting.

It’s likely that you are not aware of it nor has anyone pointed it out to you.

Look for clues that you are resisting such as feelings of frustration, resentment, restlessness, and anger.

Note your inner thoughts. You are probably resisting if you find yourself thinking, “I can’t stand this. I hate this. I want this to stop.”

Now figure out a way to go with the painful situation rather than working against it.

When my late partner was in treatment for breast cancer, she let go of being angry at the effects of the chemotherapy.

She never grew to like chemotherapy – liking the pain isn’t required here – but she dropped the negative feelings that went along with it.

And I let go of my anxiety about not being able to ‘fix it’ for her.

The experience was still painful for us – physically for her and emotionally for me – but neither of us felt that we were suffering all of the time. We tried very hard not to add on any negative emotional tones to the pain that came with the experience.

Think of your painful situation as a river you are trying to get across. The current is swift, but not so swift that you can’t wade across to the other side.

Now, one way to reach the other side is to go straight across. This requires you to keep your balance and fight against the flow of the river each time you take a step.

But an approach that works better is to walk diagonally down river toward the far shore. In this way, you are wading with the current.

The flow of the water propels each step forward as you make your way across. You will end up further down the river than you had initially intended, but you will still have made it across.

And with much less effort and struggle than if you had stubbornly chosen the most direct path.

I’m really interested in hearing from you on this subject.

Am I being too simplistic?

What about people in under-developed nations who don’t have enough food, water, clothing, and shelter? We often say they are suffering. Is their experience of suffering necessary or unnecessary?

What about people with chronic pain or terminal illness?

I still hold that in each of these instances, suffering is unnecessary.

What do you say?

“Pain is only romantic at a distance.” ~ Laurie Slate

I was on my hands and knees on the floor, and I wasn’t sure how I got there.

It was three o’clock in the morning, and I stumbled out of bed to use the bathroom. But on the way back, it hit me again as though for the first time: Ruth was dead.

She died a few weeks ago, and she wasn’t coming back. Ever.

The rawness of reality hit me hard in the stomach. I doubled over as a long wail rose from my gut and came out of my mouth as though it had a life of its own—as though it was possessed by some mad demon of grief.

I found myself on the floor, keening and sobbing.

“Oh, no! Oh, no! Oh, no!” I gasped. The awful truth—the person I loved most in the world was gone forever—had broken through the thin protection from awareness that sleep provided.

Grief had cold-cocked me right in the heart.

The rest of the story

In most self-improvement blogs, including mine, this would be the point in the story where I would say, “But then _______ (fill in the blank) happened,” and everything was better.

I would give you several bullet points so that you, too, can feel better than ever right away! Act now!

But that’s not what happened.

The rest of the story is that I cried so hard on my hand and knees, I thought I was going to vomit.

I cried and wailed to Ruth about how much I missed her.

I thought the pain would never end. And it didn’t.

Finally, exhausted and my tears spent, I was able to crawl into bed and go back to sleep.

The truth about pain

It wasn’t pretty.

It wasn’t easy.

There wasn’t any checklist of bullet points for me to follow that made it better.

The next day, I recounted the episode to my friend, Laurie, who is one of those people who can spiritually attune to other people’s wavelengths.

“It’s not like the movies, Laurie,” I said. “They make it seem so romantic when someone is grieving.”

Laurie looked at me lovingly and replied softly, “Pain is only romantic at a distance.”

No truer thing was ever said.

Pain sucks

I was watching The Amazing Spiderman the other night and chuckled a bit when Spiderman, resting after an epic fight with The Lizard, looks down at his gashed torso and says, “That completely sucked!”

That’s how it is with pain.

I made it through my horrible wailing night, but it wasn’t the last such episode that I would experience. Intense grief was a long-term companion for me, and I was wracked with painful spasms for a few years before my grief finally ebbed away to a manageable distance.

It completely sucked.

On the nature of pain

I’m very close to my older sister, Susie. She’s been telling me about the pain she’s having in her joints.

It moves around, this pain. Sometimes it’s in her feet, sometimes in her shoulders, and right now it’s in her fingers. They’re swollen, inflamed, and so sore that it’s hard for her to unscrew the cap off a water bottle, let alone do her job as an electrician.

She finally got in to see a specialist. She’s been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis: an ongoing painful disorder.

I hate this and want to fix it.

The other day, as I rode my bike, I was pondering the nature of pain.

I was riding up a hill and challenging myself by peddling in a higher gear than normal. My breath was coming in gasps, my heart was thudding out of my chest, and my thighs ached.

It hurt.

I wanted it to hurt, because I wanted to understand more about pain. Maybe if I understood about my own pain, I could help Susie with hers.

But then I realized that I was tolerating the pain in my body and continuing to push myself because I knew my pain was going to end as soon as I got to the top of the hill and got my breath back.

I called Susie later that day and told her about my realization that my tolerance of pain was based on the idea that it was going to stop. But what about her pain that may or may not end?

“I think ongoing pain is similar to when elite athletes train for an endurance sport—like a triathlon,” she said. “It depends on how much suffering you’re willing to put up with that day. Some days you can run a marathon and other days you can only tolerate five miles.

“But you keep training anyway.”

Why there are no bullet points

By this point, you might be wondering when I’m going to get to the good stuff. When am I going to give you the magic bullet points that will make life’s painful episodes better?

I’m not.

And here’s why: I receive emails from readers who tell me about their pain and their extremely difficult circumstances that break my heart to hear about.

Bullet points aren’t going to help.

Okay, maybe they will help a little.

But what I want you to know, what we all need to know and understand, is that sometimes life cold-cocks you in the heart.

And it hurts. It just fucking hurts.

And you make your way through it however you make your way through it.

Maybe it’s by sobbing on your hands and knees until you can’t sob anymore.

Maybe it’s by calling your friend at three o’clock in the morning.

Maybe it’s by tolerating as much as you can each day.

Maybe it’s by shouting and raging at God.

Somehow, miraculously, while you’re doing these things, time passes.

And one day, you look back with wonder and say, “I made it.”

I’m interested in what you think. Please leave a comment below.