The Difference Between Pain and Suffering
Before I even start talking about differentiating pain from suffering, I want to clarify that this is not some sugar-coated perspective that says something like, “Our thoughts create our suffering, so just think positive.”
Ummm. . . no.
Loss is painful, and there’s no escaping that pain. My approach to grief never involves trying to take away the pain of your loss.
However, sometimes we add suffering on top of our pain. Learning how to recognize and reduce our suffering is one of the ways that we can better cope with the pain of loss.
I was first introduced to this concept as it relates to grief in Megan Devine’s journal How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed. She writes, “Pain is a normal, healthy response when someone (or something) you love is torn from your life, Pain hurts, but that doesn’t make it wrong. . . . Suffering is different. Suffering is all the extra, added things that make everything feel worse.”
Suffering is caused by anything that makes it even harder to live with the pain of your loss. That person who always makes you feel judged and dismissed in your grief? They cause suffering. Isolating yourself and denying your feelings? This also causes suffering. Not eating enough, blaming yourself, not stepping outside of your house for days, and spending endless hours scrolling on social media? These can also cause suffering.
The pain you are feeling in your loss is not optional, but suffering is different. You can often mitigate the amount of suffering that comes alongside your pain.
To do this, begin paying attention to what makes your days feel even harder. Do you have more intense grief days when you sleep less the night before? Do you find that attending social obligations leaves you feeling more alone? Are there certain people, spaces, or activities that leave you feeling unseen or depleted?
Begin paying attention to how you feel during and after certain activities, and if you see a pattern, this can give you clues to how you might reduce your suffering (e.g., avoiding certain people, prioritizing naps, taking a break from social media). Sometimes it can help to write down how you feel (or felt) before and after certain activities so you can notice patterns.
In addition to noticing what to avoid, you can also reduce suffering by adding in the things that make life just a little bit easier. What makes it 1%, 5%, maybe even 10% better to live alongside your pain? Is it connecting with a friend? Walking outside? Doing something to honor who or what you’ve lost?
The pain that comes with loss is out of your control; it will shift and soften on its own timetable, and there’s not much you can do to change that. But suffering? Suffering is different. Figuring out where and how to reduce your suffering gives you back a little bit of control when everything has come undone. It won’t make the pain go away, but it will make it just a little bit easier to live alongside it.
Living with the pain of your loss is hard enough; don’t make yourself suffer too.
As always, take gentle care of yourself.
