Last week I opened up a discussion of pain and suffering, suggesting that in this life, we ought to expect it and must decide what to do with it. You can read it here.
But you might be saying, “Yeah Dan, but my pain is a lot more than the temporary pain of lifting weights, the loss of a family pet or even the pain experienced inside a good marriage.”
I agree. None of us are immune to various forms of pain, some much more intense than others, and why some experience more than others is beyond me too.
I just watched a documentary on the story of Tim Ballard who the movie Sound of Freedom is about. The story of millions of children who are trafficked for sex and labour is horrific. (That the legacy media doesn’t want you to watch it is concerning). Those kids face a kind of pain that you and I likely never will.
But that also raises an issue. We can’t dismiss someone’s pain because we don’t think it’s as bad as ours or someone else’s.
Not to mention the challenge that the subject of suffering is so immense it cannot properly be covered in a brief post; in fact I could write for weeks on end and just scratch the surface.
But the reality of pain and suffering is real and it affects each one of us in some form or another. Some pain is self-inflicted by the choices we make, while other pain is inflicted by circumstances not of our own making or by someone else.
One of my heroes, Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist, and a contemporary of Freud and Adler in the 1930’s, and Frankl spent most of his life trying to understand the meaning of life and in fact argues that man’s primary goal in life is to find meaning. His classic work, “Man’s Search for Meaning” flies in the face of Freud who argued man’s ultimate pursuit was pleasure, and Adler argued it was power.
Frankl endured WW2 concentration camps, saw his family executed including his wife and children and suffered in ways I can’t even imagine. So he is someone worth listening to when it comes to pain and suffering.
There are three things that Frankl argues for finding meaning in this life:
- Be working on something of significance…ultimately for the benefit of others.
- Be part of a loving community; family, close friends.
- Have a redemptive perspective on suffering.
I agree that each of us is here for the benefit of someone else. So we should figure out who we are, what we’re good at and how we can leverage it for someone’s good.
Having at least one or two loving relationships is crucial to our well-being as well.
Another hero of mine, psychiatrist William Glasser, believed that virtually every patient in his office, was there in part, because there was a relationship in their life not working very well, or they didn’t have a meaningful relationship at all.
But Frankl’s third assumption, that we should find meaning in suffering, may be the most challenging, even absurd.
Have a redemptive perspective on suffering? What does that mean?
He wasn’t saying that our suffering isn’t real, or it’s about turning a negative situation into a positive one, but that suffering is the one thing that can cause us to pause, and consider the larger questions of life that we don’t take the time for, when things are going well.
Similarly to the story of Job, in the Old Testament, Job facing incredible loss and pain asked significant questions about the meaning and purpose of life, who God is, what matters most etc.
For Job, he learned not to put his trust in the material things around him and to see God as the focus of his life. To love God and enjoy him forever in spite of his circumstances.
When we face painful circumstances, according to Frankl, we can learn more of ourselves, of others, of God, and in that, there is meaning in suffering.
“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning…” Again, Viktor Frankl is not downplaying our pain, he’s not saying it isn’t happening, but that in our pain, we may experience things we may never have otherwise.
For example, my dad died unexpectedly at age 54. But through that painful experience, I saw the love of friends and family in a unique way, I wrestled with God and experienced Him in ways I would not have otherwise, I renewed some commitments to my own health, and reflected on how I could be the best dad I could be to my then two year old daughter and 9-month old son. The pain was there but so was meaning and purpose.
Like I said, the subject of pain and suffering is immense. But Viktor Frankl gives us some insights into how we can approach the pain we face in life. And I recommend everyone read his classic work, “Man’s Search for Meaning”.
If you’re dealing with pain and suffering, please don’t go it alone. Seek out a trusted friend or professional to get the guidance you need.
If you need to talk, let’s talk.
Feeling stuck? Not sure what to do next? Your life not where you want it to be? Life coaching can help. Contact me for a free 45-minute discovery call. Let’s talk.
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