There’s beauty in the breakdown {Self-Discovery, Word by Word}

So let go, jump in,

Oh well, watcha waiting for,

It’s alright because,

There’s beauty in the breakdown.

The fact that pain is one of the most beautiful manifestations of the human condition is often little comfort when, say, your foot is stuck under the dresser you’ve just dropped on it. But that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

I’m not sadist, truly, but I feel so grateful every day to be made part of the pain that my patients endure. It’s not that I cause the suffering – I actually don’t believe we can create suffering from someone else. And this isn’t because human suffering keeps me employed, but rather because it means that my patients are truly alive. That instance in which they feel gut-wrenching emotion can be like finding a pulse on a person whose been flat-lining as the people around them squeeze their eyes tight and hold their breath.

To be fair, many of the people I work with have their endured their fair share of pain. They’re brave as hell. And I won’t go so far as to say that each of them should count their blessings every night that they have suffered. But there is something truly spectacular about pain, something magical almost.

We rage against it, our minds drawing their whips and lashing out against it’s arrival. But still it comes, sneaking in at just the moment we let our shoulders relax. Suddenly, it’s there.

Sometimes that pain is bright and colorful, a spectacle in the night sky, illuminating the murky air. Sometimes it’s penetrating, a deep ache that moans from within. Sometimes we don’t know it’s there, hiding in the recesses of our souls, until suddenly we do, and we can no longer not look.

But whatever shape it takes, however deep it’s roots reach, our pain is our smelling salts, drawing us awake and out of the unconscious abyss.

As hard as we rail against it, we are no match for pain. But suffering – that’s another story.

Pain we must endure because that’s the cost of admission to humanity. But suffering is a choice, one that comes when we do all the raging and resisting and foot stomping.

When we boil it down, we might think of suffering is the experience of pain plus fear.

It’s what happens when we tell ourselves, “I just can’t bear it!” We regail ourselves with stories of how we’re not strong enough, this is too much, we don’t deserve to feel this – or maybe we do – and that we just cannot go on living if it’s going to be this way. Suffering looks like pushing away, when pain calls for pulling in – pulling in our strongest resolve to feel.

A colleague of mine shared a metaphor with me recently. She said that it’s kind of like standing on the shore with your shins covered in water, your back to the vastness of the ocean. If we stand there long enough, letting the waves build and build and continuing to stare at the shore, we know what will happen – we’ll inevitably be knocked over. And that will hurt. But if we can just turn around, will ourselves to look at the “monster” that is working to knock us over, we see that there’s actually a sea of beauty awaiting us. And we can decide to gently take a step back – or even a step forward – bending our body so as to ride the waves rather than succumb to them.

That’s kind of what it’s like.

We’re urging everyone this month to turn around, to look at the ocean of pain in your own life, and to reflect on it openly. I hope you will take part in this month’s Word by Word series. Learn how to here.