Suffering: finding a positive response

This has been a year of trials for me. A kidney stone surgery in April, and as of October 13th, severe, crippling lower back pain. Never before in my life have I had to deal with so much physical suffering. Initially, when I went to the hospital for the kidney surgery, I thought I knew how to handle it. My ego was saying, “Hey! No big deal! Let’s go for it. Piece of cake. I’ve figured out life and will prove how strong I am.” I went in with a positive (yet, in retrospect, probably too arrogant) attitude. But things did not turn out as simple as I had expected. It was not at all easy and there were many unfortunate surprises, complications, and five days in the hospital. My positive attitude soon evaporated, leaving me in a blank state of shock. It took me many weeks, even months, to comprehend what I went through and how to process or internalize that experience to make sense of it. In recent years I had learned how to cultivate a positive mental attitude and heal myself from years of childhood depression and mental/emotional suffering, but physical suffering was entirely new territory for me. I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know how to respond to it or what to think. I was like a baby starting from scratch in a new world.

Now here I am again going through another physical trial. This time with a pain that is almost constant, and debilitating enough to make it hard to walk, stand up, or get out of bed. Again, my initial reaction was shock. “Why is this happening to me? Why now, so soon after the previous trauma? What if I never recover? What if I become paralyzed and ruin my husband’s life? What stupid thing did I do to myself to cause this?” Fears and anxieties and anger swirled in my head for many days. I still had not learned any lessons about pain and what to do with it. I knew there must be some better response than to feel sorry for myself. Recently I had made the decision to follow my husband and mother and convert to Catholicism. I knew the Saints and other Church writers had a lot to say about suffering, so I searched for answers, for a way to respond to my pain in a positive, meaningful way. Over the years I had also studied Buddhism, with its notions of non-attachment and non-judgmental observation of the body. I had also studied many different writers on self-improvement, spirituality and meditation. I slowly came up with a list of intentions, like an action plan for transforming my ideas about pain and suffering. Here is a list of what I have learned:

• I am not my body. My identity is on the inside, in my spirit, rather than in the physical sensations of my body. I will not allow my body to dictate my emotional state, whether for good or bad. The body is a vessel, a vehicle. It is not the real me.

• “Resistance is the cause of suffering.” This is a good one from Bill Harris, creator of Holosync, a meditation program. The idea is that the more I resist my pain by fighting against it or arguing that it’s not fair or that it shouldn’t be there, only results in creating more and more suffering. It sounds pretty Buddhist – so instead of fighting against the idea that the pain is there, I will just observe it without judgment or emotion. Pain is like an unwelcome guest. It’s just there and for the time being there’s not much I can do about it to get rid of it. Of course I am working to find a solution and heal my body, but until then I will let go of my resistance of the pain’s reality.

• From a Catholic standpoint, I offer my pain to others with love. Any time I feel the pain start to appear I think of it as a beautiful shining bell, ringing in a clear high voice, reminding me to give my pain away as a prayer. In this way, the pain is not about me, it’s about what I can give to others. I can take my pain and create a positive energy that I can send out into the world or to someone who needs more help than I do.

• Cultivating gratitude. This was already something I had started doing a couple of years ago. Keeping a journal and remembering each day all that I have to be thankful for is a powerful way to keep a positive perspective. I have realized how many blessings I have in my life. Whatever pain I may go through does not diminish all that I am grateful for.
  

• Everything happens for a reason. For many years I scoffed at this idea and would not believe it (in fact, I was basically an atheist for at least 20+ years). Yet, at some point in the past five years or so I decided to change my thinking. Why not believe this? Why not see that there is an underlying reason to our existence and a reason for every event that happens in our lives? I think life becomes much more beautiful and grand if we can find a meaning and a higher purpose to it. In my current situation, I believe I am going through these trials to learn about pain and how to respond to it in a constructive way. I obviously did not know anything about it before, and now is my time to learn. And more importantly, it is to learn that pain is not necessarily evil. This is not my time to feel sorry for myself. I can transform this experience to make myself a better person. I can now empathize and understand something more of the suffering of others. Cultivating compassion – for every thing and every one – maybe that is what our lives really come down to.