Suffering has taught me who I am. It allowed me to know parts of me that I hadn’t seen or didn’t want to face before, I always wanted nothing bad to happen in my life, but I understood that wanting this is wanting something impossible.
We all suffer one way or another. We have gone through a number of circumstances that have marked us, circumstances that we would have liked not to live, but we must understand that this is impossible, life is not pink for anyone, although for some, in the same circumstances, it can. be nicer than others. Here’s the key.
- Instead of trying to live life without suffering.
- We must learn to live suffering differently.
- Learn how to use it to grow and rebuild.
- And to do so it is often necessary to develop different skills in the safe space of therapy.
It’s not about avoiding suffering, it’s about learning to integrate it into the history of your life as one more chapter that has taken you exactly where you are.
Psychotherapy should be understood as a safe space for all who use it, in therapy there are no trials, there are no absolute truths, everything that is said is under professional secrecy, this secret can only be broken if the patient is harming himself, others or by judicial decision.
In addition, therapy is a place where a solid foundation is established that provides stability, even if their life has been difficult, for this, psychologists with the patient seek to build a therapeutic alliance as a sure bond on which to base the therapy.
This unique, if established, link helps to consolidate a climate of trust, which facilitates the treatment of all the fears and sufferings hidden there, because first we acquire the adaptive skills that allow us to take the necessary measures to deal with the causes. suffering, we must be confident enough to be able to talk about it without fear.
Often, the emphasis is not on the revelation of fears, but on creating a solid foundation for walking with them.
Naming suffering isn’t about using diagnostic labels. It is often not even possible to use one of these tags because there is no match. Sometimes the cause of our suffering is so unique or so worldly that it has no name, but we must give one. .
Maybe that name was just for the person who gave it, and that’s enough, it could be my dark side, it could be nervousness, it could be shadow or it could be whatever you want, it’s a name that will be used in the therapeutic space to define something of its own, and therefore something so individual that, even if it has a common name, it will have a unique meaning.
Naming suffering helps define the problem that is causing our own torment, so that we can change or integrate it.
Once it has a name, this suffering will take on a new meaning, going from a feeling to a clearer thing. Something that has been taking shape and can therefore be explained and understood by both the psychologist and the patient, then it is something that can be changed or incorporated.
When the cause of suffering is something that has happened in the past and cannot be changed, the best way to overcome it is by incorporating it into the history of your life, it is not a simple thing, but it is not impossible either.
To incorporate something, you have to accept it. You have to accept that no matter what happens, feeling guilty now is useless. There’s no point in blaming others either because the past happened and you can’t change it. The work that requires this integration, this acceptance of suffering, is very great. But evil must flow and accept it naturally to build a new self.
Rebuilding is a big step, but a step that leads to the acceptance of this dark side emerging from within. You will no longer feel a void full of pain or fight your inner demon. You must have rebuilt and learned that what happened has done is who you are now.