Teaching Someone How to Suffer

Teach them how to suffer and therefore how to go beyond suffering.

Eckhart Tolle

At one time...I was a great person to come to when you were suffering emotional pain. I had the skills and the mindset to soothe and make you feel better.  I am not so great for the suffering personality to come to anymore. 

I watch my loved one's suffer now and there is this detachment in me that others may judge as "cold". 

I have put aside much of the  therapeutic communication skills I have learned and taught over the years...and I listen without expression.  That just blows the person speaking away. They look at me expecting the co-miseration, the validation of their circumstances as being the cause for their pain that they have come to expect...but I can no longer give them that. 

I no longer join them in their stories by saying things like, "Oh! That is terrible.  I can't believe that is happening and I am so sorry that is happening to you.  That is so unfair. I understand that it or they were so unjust, unkind, or inconsiderate...no wonder why you are upset etc."  

I listen quietly and attentively but they often say in a hurt defensive voice, "Well!  Can you say something to make me feel better? What's wrong with you? You used to be so empathetic and easy to talk to. " 

I just answer with, "I know you are hurting and I do feel bad that you are suffering." That is honest because  I do still feel the emotional energy of others quite intensely. I might even say if I am brave enough to accept the reaction I will likely get from them, "but maybe you do not need to suffer like this.  Maybe, there is another way of looking at this and responding?"  

If they, so entrenched in their story or in this habitual need to create reasons for their suffering, do not shut me down at that point...I might go on to say, " I understand Life can be difficult and can throw things like this at us.  People, in their unconscious states, can also be difficult to deal with.  That is really hard to handle. It is painful and frustrating. I have learned there is so little we can do about that but there is something we can do about how we respond to it all, how much we let it "ruin our day or our life", and how much we listen to the stories mind creates about it."

I may at that point get, " What?  I can't believe you! I just need some validation for my pain over what has happened...not your  woo-woo philosophies. You are so mechanical and cold lately. Don't you care?"

I will usually sigh then before I respond with, "I do care. I do see your pain and I do know you are hurting but with all my practice I also see there is a way out of this suffering  and that is by going through the pain you are experiencing." 

That usually leads to the loved one shutting down, leaving, or reacting even more dramatically when their ego doesn't get what it wants and expects, which is validation of the story in the form of the listener being sucked into it. 

I see the story so clearly now.  I see the pain and I also see the unnecessary suffering that comes with resistance and attachment to this story.  I see a way through! 

But..often the listener is not ready for that. For example, I often deal with individuals diagnosed with "personality disorders."  I deal with people identified with their suffering.  Personality disorders ( which to me is an oxymoron because I believe merely having a personality is a life disorder....so we all have a personality disorder) express the epitome of what Eckhart Tolle refers to as the "Pain body. " The pain is very real!!! These individuals are suffering and making behavioural choices based on that suffering. They are not yet conscious enough to own what they are doing. The attachment to and the identification with the  pain is even more real.  These individuals seem to see themselves as their pain. They build story to rationalize the pain and to define who they are.  They seem to wear so many "prickly" extra layers of personality defense around the core.

Because of their desperate need for relief from the pain they sometimes , unintentionally, act as big vacuum cleaners sucking everything and everyone around them into their story...into their pain experience. Their idea of the support they need  is "full immersion" into the pain. It is easy to drown in that experience of "help!"For that reason, when they seek the listening ear and show of support they deserve from others, they are often met with some resistance.  I, too, feel the twisting of resistance in my gut on many occasions with the simple quesion, "Can I talk to you?" 

In all fairness, I have given much on the psychological and emotional level.  Over the years, I have spent a great deal of time and energy attempting to understand (reading every book available, talking to experts, talking to them etc) their pain experience and how to best approach it. I also allowed myself to get sucked in again and again in hope that it would help.  I "owned" their experienceof pain on many occassions and I felt like I was drowning in it more than once. I now know this wasn't helping behaviour.  How are we going to help a panicking  someone get to shore  if they drown us in the process?  

I value my energy and my healing practice.  I know that I need to be cautious where I physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually focus my attention.  Where attention goes, energy flows. So, I ask myself before I agree to "talk" , "Am I ready for this right now and what it will mean to my energy reserves?" 

And if I meet resistance and reactivity during a conversation or request for "help", as I often do, I quickly pull back knowing that I don't have to take that energy in.  I don't have to own it.  I remind myself that this is their pain; that the suffering they create because of it is theirs as well.  I am not helping them when I help them to build or sustain their unwholesome and prickly defenses. And I am certainly not helping myself when I keep getting sucked into it. It is too draining of my energy. I have learned to fall back away from their reactivity and my remaining reactivity to their reactivity (as much as I can). I continue to listen quietly. I repeat, "I see you are in pain."  I hug when it is called for, I express my love.

I cannot, however, give their hurting egos what they want.  I know it will do no good in the long run.  Sure, I could temporarily soothe those egos by validating that  their experiences are the sole cause of their suffering...but that would be a lie. Besides, I know those egos would never be satisfied for long. I wouldn't truly be helping them...or myself.  It does me no good, what so ever, to fall into their stories...I have too much story of my own to dismantle and get through. Dealing with story in anyone is so unnecessarily draining and unproductive to our ultimate growth. 

Am I being selfish and uncompassionate? My own ego, which is so inclined to please others and solve problems, will jump in at these times to tell me that I am...but the more I detach from story in self and others, the more I realize that  this is the most compassionate thing I can do.

Sigh! Crazy eh? 

All is well in my world

Eckhart Tolle ( 2023?) Do I Cause My Own Suffering? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEH_3GyfIag