Dr. Shefali (whom I am following this year, and seeing her “year of manifestation” series) had Danielle LaPorte on as a guest. Danielle is also a coach of the soul and spirit who wrote “Fire Starter Sessions” years ago. She is an authentic and inspired free spirit that has made her mission in life - simply to live it authentically and to help others do the same. I had bought Danielle’s Fire Starter sessions 6 or 7 years ago and while I didn’t get all the way through it - LOVED the message.
Anyway - it was a great interview and reminder of what truly matters.
Dr. Shefali asked her about “pain and suffering” and I hadn’t thought so much about the difference. But, I loved her answer.
The gist of what she said was...
Pain is the feeling in the moment.
Suffering is our RELATIONSHIP with pain.
I thought it was a great and succinct explanation. Pain is the loss we feel, the sadness we feel, the physical pain we feel... Suffering is our relationship with pain, our PROJECTION of pain forward, or our DWELLING in pains of the past... Suffering is “wishing” the pain didn’t exist...
She goes on to suggest that we all experience some level of pain and suffering, and that our mission should be awareness of those things, and the ability to be present in pain but not prolong or expand on suffering...
As human beings too often we amplify pain and suffering by dwelling in it... or we sometimes try to protect ourselves by ignoring or denying pain.
Pain is a part of life - a part of being alive and present. It is part of our IS... and very often its presence is not controlled by us...
Suffering is part of life - a part of being alive and present... it is part of our IS, but it’s presence is something we largely if not fully control...
Suffering comes from “wishing” pain wasn’t there - or from projecting the pain to the past or the future (none of which exist)... We own suffering...
We most often think about these terms in PHYSICAL context... and those are obviously very real and clear.
As I think about this - I think more about EMOTIONAL pain and suffering... which is also very real, but much less clear... emotional pain can’t be seen so it is much less obvious if healing is going on or not, and its much harder to be empathetic to those who are feeling it in their lives...
We know where our physical pain is very clearly...
Do you know where your emotional pain is?
Do you ever amplify it into suffering?
What relationship do you choose to have with pain?
And, remember your relationship evolves and changes in every moment...
in harmony,
Nestor