Yes and no. “The suffering ends when it [the suffering] has become bigger than the fear of facing and going through the pain that has been causing the suffering.”
Hang on with me here, I know this is a complex statement. And a paradox. I believe suffering is a byeffect of a very painful experience we have experienced that is still active in our system. We still suffer from whatever painful experience(s) that happened to us. It was so painful, that we stored it away from our conscious awareness, yet stored away is not gone, it’s not dissolved and it’s not healed. It’s just hidden and locked away from conscious sight, experience and awareness.
Yet, the experience is still very active somewhere, it continues to live on within us, just like when we had been experiencing it. The only difference is that now it is hidden from us, but it’s still sending out the signal of pain, disguised as the baseline of suffering.
Imagine playing music on your phone and muting it. Just because you muted the song, it didn’t stop playing it. The song is still running since it wasn’t stopped, only muted. It will continue to drain your phone battery whether it’s on mute or not because, again, it’s still on play, just not making any noise.
However, in connection to pain, the suffering is the indication that you still have something running on mute in the background, draining your emotional wellbeing.
Suffering is created from pain that is still active somewhere
Suffering can not exist without reason, without the counterpart of the initial experience. Suffering is always an indicator that there is an unprocessed trauma, a deeply painful experience that left scars on your soul and psyche, and that is still actively causing you pain. Suffering is an indication that the damage has already been done but not yet been repaired. In that sense, suffering has a purpose, it indicates that there is a wound, whether you are fully aware of it or not. It’s like a wound that is bleeding. As long as it is bleeding, it’s not healing, but causing you active suffering – it’s here to remind you to tend to the wound in due time.
I’m not saying it is a good purpose. I’m just saying it acts as an indicator that something needs tending to.
We can prolong suffering by not tending to the wound, and we often tend to avoid dealing with it until tending to the wound and facing the pain has become less uncomfortable than the ongoing suffering (metaphorically spoken – I’m referring to emotional suffering).
Meaning when you are ready to do whatever it takes to end the suffering, you are ready to face its – even more painful – origin stored in time and space, and that’s when you have decided to put a stop to the suffering. The first, most difficult step is already done, and you are on your path to healing.
Often though, the intricate origins aren’t as easily detectable and the human nature is prone to give up when no reward is in sight. Finding the roots of our pain can last days, weeks, months, years or even decades, it depends on how deep the trauma runs and how much is covering it up.
If there was no suffering, we wouldn’t look for the wound, however, with no wound, there would be no suffering. In that sense, suffering is created and purposeful to bring us back to wholeness.
Now, what is also extremely important to understand is that suffering is not needed to find the original wound, but it’s often the most efficient way in working with human nature.
A wound does not need to bleed, but often when it doesn’t we don’t recognize and acknowledge it as a wound that needs our loving care and attention. So therefore, yes suffering has a purpose, even if we don’t like it. And the suffering stops, when facing the pain seems to finally become the better option than experiencing continued ongoing suffering.
Header photo by Sydney Sims on Unsplash
