A look at suffering: Is it necessary? And how can online trauma therapy help you?

Suffering is the subjective experience of physical, mental or emotional pain - often linked to feelings of distress, anguish or aversion. If pain is the initial feeling, suffering is the complex, deeper, often times more prolonged negative state that is born from it. It is said that there is no suffering without pain, but there can be pain without suffering.

We know that suffering exists because it has an opposite in joy and ecstasy and visa-versa. Pain, suffering, grief, fear, anxiety, shame and loneliness are all states that have opposites:

Joy, happiness, gratitude, courage, security, relief, love, intimacy, hope.

But do we need to suffer and is all suffering bad?

This is a question that has been discussed by philosophers and academics for thousands of years.

I think it would be naive to think that suffering is avoidable - in fact it is ultimately inevitable for almost all humans to suffer at some point during their lives.  Sometimes (context dependant), suffering can be incredibly useful for future growth. But it is not always necessary or useful for all aspects related to experiences of pain.  

We will all feel physical and emotional pain to one degree or another in our lifetimes - Sometimes this will lead to suffering. And that is normal and not something we should shy away from.

One of my favourite principles of pain and suffering is the buddhist notion that:

Suffering = Pain x Resistance

Chinese Taoisim also encourages the art of not resisting pain but instead going with it, like a leaf in a river.

Sometimes suffering can be a useful tool for personal growth.

Long distance runners or cyclists talk about the immense physical and emotional suffering they endure when competing in multi-day events where they forgo sleep to keep moving for sometimes 40-60+ hours. 

One of my favourite sporting events each year in March is the Barkley Marathons held in Frozen Head State Park in Tennessee. It is known as “the race where dreams come to die”. It’s a race of five, 20 (ish mile loops) with the combined elevation of 2x ascents of Everest.

 It has been run since 1986 and in that time, only 20 people have ever managed to finish it. Athletes each year, truly suffer on a course that needs to be completed within 60 hours, has no markings (athletes need to self navigate based on viewing the map of the course the night before), no technology or help is allowed and they need to collect pages from 13 different books along each of the five loops of the course to show that they didn’t cheat.

For those athletes that do complete the course, fame and admiration await them. Their suffering draws huge attention and respect. Many of the runners return again and again to try and complete the course, already knowing how difficult it will be.

These individuals have found a way of embracing suffering to achieve growth. They do not fight the pain or suffering - they lean into it and embrace that it is part of the process. From the Buddhist quote earlier, they reduce their own suffering by not resisting the current pain they are experiencing.

The above example is suffering that is self elected and expected so doesn’t necessarily relate to the types of suffering you or I may experience in our lifetime. That type of suffering appears blindsides us or creeps up on us over time, or even as the next example shows, occurs after a moment of trauma...

I worked with a client a few years ago who had experienced a significant car crash many years prior, where his 18 month old son was trapped in the back seat. 

After the crash, his car caught on fire and he was somewhat trapped, pinned by the steering wheel on his chest. With a monumental effort, he freed himself and then ripped open the back door of the car to free his son from the back seat (who was fine). The client soon after, realised that he was in agony having broke both ankles, one of his wrists and about 50% of his ribs.

What plagued him for years after was the guilt that his son could have died, that the crash was all his fault and the general anxiety he felt every day. Coupled with a lot of physical pain from his injuries, he just didn’t know how to let it go. He suffered with these negative states for years.

Our sessions focused on diminishing his subconscious memory of the crash and the associated emotional and physical trauma of it. We then set to work helping his nervous system let go of these shame and guilt loops that affected his day to day life. Finally he was able to stop resisting the notion that it was time to move on and focus on the now. His lifelong anxiety and suffering was tied into all of these factors, but most importantly, his resistance to forgiving himself.

We all suffer when we lose a loved one, experience sickness or physical pain. Those who live through traumatic experiences suffer. These things are inevitable.

What isn’t written in stone is how long you can/should/must suffer.

If you suffer, you shouldn’t feel guilty for that. The nervous system can maintain feelings of suffering, long after an event has finished. This happens for a wide range of reasons - if it is grief related to a loss of a loved one, there is trauma felt from the loss of that person, and the loss of the person you were, only in their presence. If suffering exists because of a range of brief but significant traumatic moments that helped generate your identity or view on the world, this will generate a different form of suffering. These can exist without softening for multiple other reasons - but know, deep down, your subconscious is trying to protect you. It may not have the tools to help you soften and resolve these events and your view on them/your world after, but it's doing it's best.

The online trauma therapy I use with clients who experience suffering is designed to reduce, soften and eliminate it. Yes, they may still feel the rawness of the loss of a loved one, but that pain is softened by the diminished anguish. It may take some tome to shift your view on the world based on previous experience, but the trauma of those experiences can let go. This allows your nervous system to realign to a state of greater coherence; no longer stuck in states of fear or grief which were essential for survival in the beginning, but perhaps not needed anymore. Beyond that are infinite possibilities for new interactions with what once you felt were beyond you.

If this resonates with you, book a free consultation to find out how we can start your transformational path towards an existence free of suffering.

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