Pain vs. Suffering
One person has made a distinction between pain and suffering. Pain is an emotion that happens rather naturally. You feel physical pain when something happens to your body. You feel emotional pain when something happens inside you or in a close relationship. While pain is an emotion that happens naturally, suffering comes from all the thoughts and feelings that we add to it with our minds.
It is natural to experience pain from trauma. If you were to go through a horrendous event and did not experience difficult thoughts and feelings, that would seem strange. The problems begin with what you do with this natural pain of trauma. The mind goes to work and creates all kind of judgments, explanations, evaluations, and questions. Why? In an effort to eliminate the pain. These efforts begin with thoughts like “If I can keep the pain away, I will be okay.” Or maybe you decide, “If I can understand why this happened, then the pain will go away.” When those thoughts don’t work, the judgment sets in, “There is something wrong with me” or “I will always be like this.” In an effort deal with the natural pain from trauma, you have contributed to your own suffering.
All of these thoughts begin to influence your actions. Because your efforts to control the pain of your trauma do not work, you begin to shape your life in ways that will keep the trauma away. Perhaps you choose to go out in public less because you might encounter a situation that will trigger the thoughts and feelings associated with it. Or you might become irritable with your friends and loved ones and lash out at them in anger, even when you do not really want to. Or you sink into a depressed state or start to drink more than you should. Again, all of these add to the suffering that is a response to the pain of trauma. And when this happens, your life becomes smaller.
Please understand that I am not trying to make light of all that you are experiencing as a result of your trauma. But I am hoping that I can give you a different perspective that will allow you to develop a different relationship with your trauma.
The Power of Stories
Stories have the power to shape our living. Stories are the way we make meaning in our lives; you begin to live out the story you tell about who you are and how you want to be in the world. Every story has a past; like a book, you read one chapter and you move on to find out what happens next. Every story has a future; like a book, you look forward to the chapters ahead so you can enjoy the unfolding of the narrative.
But unlike a book, the stories of your life are living stories. And it is easy to let the trauma dictate the story you tell about yourself and the way you live in the world. With the past, the only episodes in your story are the ones that support the trauma. Any other moments of joy and happiness that happened are left out. With the future, the only moments you can imagine are the ones that picture the way the trauma will control you. Any other possible moments of meaning and hope are left out. You begin to live a problem-saturated story. And your life becomes smaller.
Stop Getting Stuck In The Past
The invitation of trauma treatment is to stop getting stuck in the past and the future, and to live instead more fully in the present moment. To be sure, what is happening in the present moment may not be pleasant, and yet, you have experienced how living in the past and the future does not really work. With the emotional flexibility that comes from willing mindfulness, you are able to see and to choose ways of living that are more in line with what gives you meaning and vitality.
And your life stops becoming smaller.
For more information about trauma treatment, click here.