Suffering module
This module will concentrate on the idea of suffering as a human emotion and introduce the idea that it can also be a powerful vehicle to find out how our internal response mechanisms are setup.
Objectives
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
Pain is unavoidable
To wish a life without pain is to wish to have no life. As pointed out by M. Scott Peck: "This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness" and seconded by Carl Jung: "Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering".
“Today I escaped anxiety. Or no, I discarded it, because it was within me, in my own perceptions, not outside.”
Marcus Aurelius
Pain vs suffering
When it comes to feeling pain, one is struck by the immediate realness of the situation. Our internal pain receptors firing up give us no reason to believe that what we are experiencing is not real. It is immediate and cannot be turned off, one cannot simply choose to not feel physical pain.
Suffering however is more of a personal and idiosyncratic construct; it is personally biased and was formed at a earlier stage in life, it is highly informed by our framing of a given situation.
What we might experience in the present, could be equally informed and influenced by the facts we are dealing in real time as well as with the pre-established internal structures and personal beliefs one might have about suffering.
In the worse case scenario, our personal definition of suffering might motivate a negative cycle that is more detrimental than the original source of discomfort. What is specially detrimental to growth is to try to escape "legitimate suffering" and to seek for sources to be relieved from any type of suffering, missing therefore a learning opportunity. For it would be absurd for a human to experience development without having points of difficulty and personal struggle.
"If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So if therapists wish to foster their patients mental health, they should not be afraid to create a sound amount of tension through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life"
Viktor Frankl
Who has suffered the most?... and is my pain valid if others are in more pain?
One of the most common questions for those individuals that live in a developed nation is to ask: should I already be happy? and why don't I feel content if I have more affluence than the majority of people in this world? That question is rooted in a deeply flawed premise: that suffering levels are comparable to one another, that because others are suffering more we should feel happy.
When it comes to noticing emotions that are negative and undesired one should not deny that they exist regardless of the context. They are there inside of us and that is all that matters.