We can learn so much from pain. As therapist and author Merle Shain writes, “One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.” But we have to choose to have the learning experience and not be seduced into assuming the role of victim. It’s wise to be vigilant. When we hear the victim rearing her head, muttering such questions as, “Why me?” it’s up to us to retrieve the hopeful, optimistic aspect of ourselves. A victim cannot find the gifts inherent within pain because he or she is simply too invested in suffering and blaming to look.
Many gifts can eventually be found among the tattered wrappings of distress.
My friend, Finny, has a great victim-busting approach. When she feels her victim mindset coming on, she allows twenty minutes to “mope, whine, blame, and feel sorry for” herself. Then she says, “Okay, dearie, let’s see what we can learn from this!” It’s pretty impressive that she gives this just twenty minutes, because we all know how easy it is to indulge in lamenting life’s unfairness to poor little ol’ me. Of course, what’s important is the intention, not the time limit. If twenty minutes doesn’t work for you, don’t give up. It’s still worth doing.
As a therapist, I’ve seen over and over how difficult times provide people with the opportunity for growth spurts; that’s why I now see most hard times as incredible gifts. In my practice, I’ve heard many people quote Charles Dickens’s first line in A Tale of Two Cities—“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times”— when referring to some crisis they had weathered. Notice I said “weathered.” It’s generally easier to see the best of times after the worst of the pain has passed.
As most of us have, I’ve experienced the growth-through-pain cycle countless times. After many years, I still marvel at and give thanks for the changes that occurred in me, and in my life, as a result of being divorced. Did it hurt? You bet! Did I hate it at the time and rail against it? Absolutely. Do I like the me I’ve become as a result of it better than the me I was before? Without a doubt.
Pain is often the incubator of compassion.
Isabel Allende writes, “The idea that we should avoid pain no matter what is crazy, because it separates us from the experience of the sacred. We are often in touch with the deepest part of ourselves through pain.” That’s it exactly. Being dragged through the knothole of grief and loss often draws people into the depths of their hearts, where they discover a wellspring of unconditional love. John Tarrant, author of The Light Inside Darkness, says, “If I defer the grief I will diminish the gift.” Like rough stones polished in a tumbler of pain, many of us emerge from intensely dark experiences more beautiful than before, endowed with greater understanding of ourselves and others, and capable of deep and enduring empathy, love, compassion.
Pain can be a blessing in disguise—sometimes in deep disguise— because it provides a portal to spiritual and emotional insight and inspiration.
In his classic book The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran says, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.” Whenever I’m working through my own pain, this passage gives me hope that some good will come of it. The wisdom of his words assures me that pain can offer many blessings among the bruises. Increased self-love and understanding, deeper and more meaningful relationships, and greater appreciation for all the wonders of life are a few blessings that spring to mind. Probably the most wonderful gift I’ve found among the tattered wrappings of pain is the gift of a heart more fully open to the warmth of the Beloved, as I often like to call God.
Excerpted from How to Stay Upbeat in a Beat Down World by Sue Patton Thoele. Available on Amazon.
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