-Dante Alighieri
I often come across people who tell me about a sense of apathy in their daily lives. They get up, work, have friends, good health, and money, yet still feel a voidness they can’t quite put into words. When they come to see me, we sometimes find that this emptiness stems from an inability to connect with a deeper domain of being, a spiritual core we all have access to. So, the question becomes: how do we start connecting with ourselves, and when did we lose that connection?
There are several possible reasons for this disconnection. One of them is our inability to connect with the pain and suffering that are part of the human experience. It's common to have developed an aversion to pain, preferring instead to chase pleasure. But when we disconnect from pain, we also disconnect from other things that make life meaningful. In other words, we close the door not only to painful emotions but also to those that make us feel truly alive. This isn't something we do consciously; it’s a defense mechanism to avoid discomfort, a habit that's been encouraged by a culture that promotes feeling good at all costs (hedonism) — a materialistic, feel-good society.
Reconnecting with the suffering and pain that accompany the human experience is vital to living a meaningful life. We begin to see ourselves as part of a community that also suffers for various reasons (money, health, politics, mental struggles), and we recognize that we’re all on the same level, unconsciously checking our arrogance and realizing we have more in common than differences. Acknowledging suffering and pain brings the chance to see how fortunate we are to have had something in the past, and of course, the chance to regain it. For example, with health: we suffer from illness now, but we were healthy before, and we might be healthy again later. We see that we lost precious time when we were healthy, and our blindness kept us from seeing life’s value. Recognizing our suffering and pain brings gratitude, because, despite the things that hurt, we still have aspects of life that feel good. If a person can make this shift in perspective, suffering and pain become powerful tools for appreciating how lucky we are to have the chance to do things differently.
Recognizing our own suffering and pain also helps us see it in others. When we can see others’ pain, it’s natural not to want to cause more, but instead to create harmony and do good. This is why we feel motivated to do something beneficial, even if it’s just a small act. Altruism and the desire to do good for others — whether through words, actions, or kind wishes — is a natural result.
Reconnecting with ourselves means touching this painful core and all the explanations we give for it: the parents we had, the partner who cheated on us, the bullying we faced as children, our father’s death, and the endless explanations. A true understander of human suffering and pain knows that these are simply different scenes in the same play: life includes both painful and sublime events. We might spend our whole lives trying to understand why things happened and still never know the true cause. However, we can understand that being here on this earth involves this feeling of inner dissatisfaction, and that despite it, we can give our lives meaning.
This is what we do in family constellation workshops: we touch our pain. But this time skilfully. Naturally, as we do this, a desire to do good is born, for ourselves and, in turn, for others. Compassion for our human nature arises, and our infantile perspective — the belief that life should be exactly as we expect — fades away. There’s nothing more childish than believing that just because we expect something, it should happen.
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