Nobody likes suffering, but suffering shows us who we are. It makes us hungry for something else. It’s the great unveiling of our character, our core, our identity. It shows us what we can and can’t handle. It’s the foundation for growth.
You might be asking: “Why do I have to suffer to grow? Why can’t I just grow?” Here’s why.
Suffering Builds Muscle
Suffering is hard and challenging. And hard, challenging things are what create the muscle. We’re not just talking about muscles you get when you work out or play football. We create emotional muscle or cognitive muscle when we suffer. It becomes a necessity.
Some people seem to float through their easy lives, because they don’t have much pushing up against them. We might be tempted to envy them. Don’t. When you don’t suffer, you don’t build that muscle. It’s actually a blessing to suffer and have to persevere. It makes you so much stronger.
The people who have done the most amazing things in the world almost always have really challenging stories. They’ve come out on the other side of suffering, because they’re hungry and they’re ready. They know who they are and they know what they can get through. Suffering shows us what we’re made of. And, if we choose to make the most of our suffering, we will be better, stronger, and happier on the other side of it.
Choosing How We Suffer
We get to choose how we suffer, but not why we suffer. We can’t control the why. Experiences, situations, and circumstances just happen, and some of them are inexplicable. They don’t make any logical sense in the moment and might not ever make sense. When it comes to clients who are suffering, I help empower them to choose their how.
The first thing I do is try to get them not to be scared to stare it down, lean into it, to not feel like it’s going to break them. I was at the gym last week, and I kept telling my trainer I was going to die. Literally. And he kept saying, “Well, you’d be the first person to die.”
I’ve had clients tell me, “If I really allow myself to feel this grief, I’m going to be stuck in the fetal position. I’m going to be stuck sucking my thumb. I’ll never stop crying.”
I always say, “Well, you would be the first person that has happened to. We all find the strength to push through.” Giving people a sense that they can push through is pretty critical.
The thing that’s so encouraging and great is that there are so many ways that we’re in charge. There is so much we can control, change, and reconstruct, and that’s really exciting. As hard as things are, there’s just as much hope on the other side of the hard.
Suffering Gives Us Data About Ourselves
I’m always encouraging my clients to become an expert on themselves. Paying attention to our suffering and pain will give us important information in this process. When people experience trauma, they need to debrief right away. We need to get the story out in the world so it doesn’t make us sick. Some language I use for that is:
Label it to disable it
Name it to tame it
If we can get it in front of us, get it out there, if we can talk about it, it doesn’t have as much power over us. And it’s helping us learn about ourselves in the process.
Our emotions can get in the way of us telling our story. Emotions like sadness, embarrassment, and confusion can be distracting and almost cast a shadow over things. If we can identify those, name them, and get them out of the way, then we can get to the real narrative.
People can’t see themselves accurately. We have a distorted view of ourselves. We have a limited perception, blind spots in our minds. The counseling process helps remove the blind spots for the client when they can’t do it on their own.
You’ve got to convince your clients to tell you their story. In the first session, it’s the big picture, the big story, the panorama, all the way back and around and through. In the 15th session, it might be this week’s story. It all depends on where you’re entering in, but you’ve got to get them to talk, so you can get in there and figure out which little gem you should focus on first.
The Mind is a Snowglobe
Any kind of grief, loss, or pain is a shock to our system. And any time our system gets shocked, it’s like a snow globe getting shaken. Everything is all jumbled together and feels completely out of control. We don’t even know where to begin. We feel so overwhelmed.
I talk to my clients a lot about the messy mind and how you need to order it to make sense of it. You need to take control of your thoughts and actions and order your internal world. I help my clients understand their messed up thinking, their cognitive distortions. Working through suffering builds that cognitive muscle I mentioned earlier.
When we help our clients remove blind spots, and sort through the story in the mess, it brings peace and hope. There are so many processes we can go through to order our messy minds. In my next post, I’ll share one of my favorites.
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