Three Ways to Turn Suffering into Success

It’s highly unlikely that someone would go through a lifetime without experiencing painful events that are unplanned or unwanted. There are always unexpected losses and situations that can rock someone’s world and shake it to the core. During those moments we can feel that there’s no hope of a positive outcome. But even though we have no control over what life serves us, we do have control over how we experience those events.

#1 Change Your Perception – When an unwanted event is happening, it’s only natural to perceive it as something bad. Loss, rejection, and misfortune are all examples of ways we can feel blown off our feet and lose our emotional balance. When that happens, we hurt. But hurt turns into prolonged pain when we see life darkly and refuse to let in light.

A change in perception means we decide to look at a situation differently. Instead of dwelling on the misfortunate event, we consider the possibility that it’s happening for a good reason, or that there’s an opportunity that we might not see in the moment. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of acceptance instead of resistance. “I choose to accept this unwanted reality instead of telling myself this shouldn’t be happening.”

As long as we perceive something as bad, we remain stuck in bad feelings. If we can open up to other possibilities, we then can feel the loving arms of comfort replace the cold and spindly grips of fear.

When Bob was fired from his 20-year career, he felt like his life was over. But after a few weeks, instead of falling victim to his negative thoughts, he changed his perception. “I’ve always wanted a different career, and now I can do what I want instead of what my family wanted me to do when I got my degree.” Two years later, Bob was successfully self-employed and grateful for the experience of being fired.

#2 Don’t Dilute the Experience – When you touch a hot flame, you immediately pull back from it. The same holds true when we feel emotionally burned. We want to run away from the pain that is inflicted upon us. But pain isn’t something that we can simply retract from and expect to get better.

Some people try to medicate their pain with busyness, substances, or other distractions. Others deny reality and either try to make an untenable situation work or remain in an illusion that hell is actually heaven. By avoiding reality, they cope instead of healing.

When we allow ourselves to embrace pain as much as pleasure, we are honoring our human experience as well as our need to recover from life’s blows. By facing our hurt and the cause, we can release the pain and move forward instead of continuing to grab the flames and repeatedly getting burnt.

When Mary’s husband told her he met someone else and wanted a divorce, she was devastated. Her first reaction was to see a psychiatrist and get medication to calm her down. Between drinking and taking benzodiazepines, she was able to stay numb, but she wasn’t getting over the traumatic experience either. When her sister told her she needed to stop and start a new life, she listened. It was painful for her to face the reality of losing the world she knew, but sober, she was able to navigate her way to a happier life. Once Mary grieved her losses, she began rebuilding a life of her own making. She didn’t want the divorce, but once she let go, she realized that she’d been lonelier in her marriage than she ever was starting over with new friends and interests.

# 3 Use the Pain to Grow – Instead of resisting what’s happening, grow with it. By asking what can be learned from this experience, we replace an external battle with a personal challenge. We then replace external lack of control with internal complete control.

Growing means we allow ourselves to feel anger, sorrow, and grief. By unblocking emotions, pain is replaced with peace. Other times growth means we do things we’re not comfortable with. Humans tend to operate in patterns, even if those habits are self-defeating. When we learn better habits and behaviors, we expand along positive lines.

Pain can be seen as an inferno or something that is trying to nudge us along to a better place. The heat goes up or down depending on our willingness to move toward a better place.

Jeff had everything life could offer, but he was miserable. He’d tried everything to keep life exciting – skydiving, rock climbing, diving with great whites. When he finally hit a wall with nothing left to excite him, he felt suicidal. When a friend suggested he needed help, Jeff scoffed, but as the pain intensified, he complied. Jeff went to India and spent six months in an Ashram where he learned another level of living — one of serving instead of receiving. Shedding his ego was painful but replacing excitement with a meaningful life allowed Jeff to grow emotionally and spiritually instead of living a self-serving existence.

The Buddhists teach that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. In other words, how we respond to painful events determines how much and how long we will suffer. When we can think of life working for us instead of against us, we can learn to trust that things actually are happening for a good reason. Even the most horrific events have a silver lining when we eventually find it — perhaps a lesson, an insight, forgiveness… When we embrace all of life, there’s no amount of suffering that can’t be turned into success.

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