Transforming Tragedy Into Growth

I wanted to die. Life wasn't worth living anymore. I couldn't move any part of my body without excruciating pain. I couldn't even hold my baby on my lap. I limped feebly through each moment of existence. I mustered energy to pretend enthusiasm for my loved ones. But every event, every outing, every little expenditure of energy was exhausting. Leaving the house was dreadful, but I forced myself to do my grocery shopping, attend my children's events, and pretend enthusiasm as much I possibly could. I hoped they didn't see through it. I really was happy for them. I just dreaded getting through it for myself. I felt like a burden to my partner. I was in and out of the hospital with new complications popping up daily. They diagnosed me with multiple autoimmune syndromes including Crohn's and Spondyloarthritis. Emotionally, I alternated between full PTSD crying episodes every time I had to go to emergency again or a hollow numbness I needed to adopt so that I could accomplish small tasks each day. What I had once considered small tasks were monumental for me now.

I began to feel resentment towards people who were not sick; people who could hold their babies on their laps and those in loving relationships. I didn't want to live anymore, but I couldn't leave my children. The truth was, I didn't trust others to raise them with the love, acceptance, and guidance that they deserved. Sometimes I told myself that it was I who couldn't provide them with the childhood they deserved. But then I remembered that no one would love them as much as I do. Even if it meant eternal pain, I wanted to see my children grow up. For a time, it was the only thing that got me through. But despite my deep love and willingness to suffer for my children, I needed a better reason to keep going. It was too easy to tell myself that they would be better off without me. I needed MY OWN reason to keep on living. I HAD TO BELIEVE that one day I would live with less pain; that perhaps I would even be painLESS.

That belief did indeed get me through and my pain did ease considerably. A few years later, I was significantly less disabled, separated from my previous relationship, and going through the worst heartbreak of my life when I learned about what I now call "the sweetness of sorrow." The love of my life, from a new relationship, had disappeared on me for weeks. I was utterly devastated. The pain was overwhelming. I faked a smile for my children and held back tears every moment of the day. But when I was alone, I let myself grieve. I wept for the lost relationship and worry for my partner, who was on a longer-than-usual bender. I wasn't angry at him. I was hurt and I was sad. It was the most exquisite heartache I've ever felt. My gratitude for what we had shared and the wonderful moments I'd had with him enabled me to fully feel the sweetness of my sorrow. I didn't cloud my pain with thoughts of anger or revenge. I was simply letting go with love and it was the most intense, beautiful pain I'd ever experienced.

Later, through the study of Stoicism, I came to see pain as not only beautiful, but also an important aspect of being human. Some people say suffering is a choice, and certainly it does take a new mindset to find beauty in pain and sweetness in sorrow. I believe that suffering is a natural part of being alive. It tells us things we need to know about ourselves. From great suffering, I've learned some fascinating, transformative lessons about pain that I want to share with you. Here they are:

Pain Will Ease or End

Pain is ALWAYS temporary. We may not know when it will ease or end. But it will, beyond a shadow of a doubt, ease and / or eventually end. This means that every time the thought or affirmation that "This is never going to end" happens, we must stop and correct ourselves. "This is temporary." "This too shall pass." "I can hang on till it gets better." "Nothing lasts forever, not even excruciating pain." we must say these things until we believe them. We must nurture a knowing that we'll find a way through this, even if all we can do right now is choose to survive. As someone who has been through countless years of moment-to-moment pain, I promise you that it always eases or ends. We aren't lying to ourselves when we tell ourselves it's temporary. When I look back to the years of chronic pain, I can remember telling myself, "However long this pain lasts, it is a drop in the bucket of my life. I have many more years of health ahead of me." Knowing it was temporary got me through my most difficult moments. Just remember, whether something is "good" or "bad," it is ALWAYS temporary. Change is the only constant.

Grief is Another Form of Love

I consider the worst pains to be those of grief and loss. Loss of a loved one. Loss of health or ability. Loss of a relationship. Loss of a job or home that we loved. These are our most devastating losses that cause us the most emotional pain. We would not suffer so severely if it wasn't for the LOVE part. The most painful experiences of our lives are losing the people, things, and situations that we love the most. Realizing that grief is actually another form of love can help us endure such loss with dignity and grace. We must never be ashamed when we grieve, no matter how long it takes for the pain to ease or end. We must accept that it is our deep love that causes our heartache and honour that deep love at the core of our pain. Acceptance for our own journey and acknowledgment that love is what got us here will put us on the path to healing our debilitating grief.

Minor Trivialities vs Momentous Tragedies

One of the things I learned from great pain was how trivial most things in life really are. For instance, a cheating partner would have devastated me before my years of pain. After years of pain, I didn't look for someone to be faithful to me; I looked for someone to be joyful with me. Now, when I am faced with a potentially upsetting situation, I remember what I've been through. Most things in life don't compare to the hardest moments of my life. I can say to myself: This isn't the worst thing I've ever experienced. Is anyone dying? Has anyone been severely injured? Anything short of life and death is not worth getting upset over. Stoicism suggests that we shouldn't even get upset over injuries and death because they are a natural part of the human condition. Regardless, we all go through new challenges, including momentous tragedies, in our lives. We feel devastated. We writhe in our pain and wish for it to end. I try to reserve those deep emotions for the tragedies that really matter.

Even at its worst, when a momentous tragedy occurs, it can help to remind ourselves that the worse experiences we have, the bigger our opportunities for gaining wisdom and knowledge. Every human experience teaches us something that we can use to become a more intentional, loving person or a more jaded, angry person. The same experiences will have far differing effects on different people. For instance, many people go through the medical system for years feeling very well taken care of by their medical professionals, and viewed hiccups along the way as unintentional mistakes made by overworked health professionals. I, on the other hand, went through the medical system for years feeling very ignored and mistreated by the medical professionals I encountered, and viewed hiccups along the way as further proof that health professionals are stupid and heartless. It took many years for me to heal from my trauma and change my mindset to a more loving one towards doctors, nurses, and paramedics.

The point is that big, shitty things can happen in our lives. We shouldn't allow little things to destroy our peace. And when a big shitty thing DOES happen? Our best bet is to try and learn from it with love and understanding as we attempt to navigate it, otherwise we could end up with years of trauma healing ahead of us.

Feel and Heal

Pain is a roadmap to our blocks so that we can heal through them. Pain lets us know that we need to change the way we eat or avoid other environmental toxins we are exposed to. It tells us that our relationship isn't healthy or that we've experienced a momentous tragedy that requires grace and courage to get through. Pain is how we know when something inside our minds or bodies is triggered. Offense is a form of pain. It is pain that comes from how we think and the belief that others are literally out to get us. In responding to offense, we should stand up for ourselves and others when needed. But we should act from great love, not great pain. We should seek to educate with love rather than retaliate. Otherwise, our offense will become their offense and a vicious cycle begins.

Vicarious trauma is another form of pain. The feeling of being traumatized by someone else's pain can be small, like when I see a UFC fighter get injured. It hurts me when I see a fighter get particularly clobbered in the ring. My pain ends a few minutes after I stop watching the fight. Or vicarious trauma can be big, like when we've spent years providing support to suffering people and the weight of their pain overwhelms us. This is common for people like me, who have a calling to be healers. An indigenous healer once gave me a sacred Eagle feather and told me that I was carrying the demons of the people I helped. He taught me to use rituals, such as smudging, to clear bad energies and demons that were clinging to me. Vicarious trauma can be viewed as having other people's demons clinging to us. I recommend seeing a trauma specialist if you suffer from severe vicarious trauma.

Heartache is another form of deep pain. It signals to us that we need to make changes in our lives that will support us to heal and recover. It can tell us that perhaps it's time for a relationship to end. Or it can tell us that we need to treat ourselves gently and find others who can support us, like in the case of a death of a loved one. It reminds us how important our children are when we disappoint them. Shame is a form of pain, like heartache, that tells us something needs to change in our lives – either the thing that is causing us shame or the mindset associated with the pain. For instance, if I am ashamed because I know I behaved badly as a mother – shame tells me I should apologize and strive not to make the same mistake again. Whereas, if I am ashamed for being an erotic entrepreneur, it could be because I've internalized the stigmatized view that others have towards people in my profession. In this case, I need to examine if my shame is something I can let go of because it does not belong to me.

Tonglen Meditation

I first learned of this meditation while reading Existential Kink, by Dr. Carolyn Elliott. She developed her own version of this ancient Buddhist meditation that is also known as a Compassion Meditation. In Carolyn's version, we get into a comfortable position, somewhere quiet, and we reach out into our awareness for other people who are suffering in the same way that we are. We spread our energy out across the universe and allow it to touch others who are experiencing the same pain. Once connected, we inhale slowly, breathing in their pain. So, in my case, I might reach out to other ostomates who are struggling with getting back their normal lives after this major surgery. I would feel our collective pain and acknowledge our collective suffering. Then I would slowly breathe in our pain, like a black smoke roiling into my lungs. As our pain enters me, a bright light inside me nullifies it. As I slowly exhale, I breathe out healing energy from inside me, sending it to all the people I've connected with.

We all have the potential to experience heartache, loss, chronic illness, and any other kind of human suffering. This meditation reminds us that we are not alone, that others are experiencing exactly the same thing we are (even if a Google search can't find them), and it connects us to the healing energy that is available to all of us collectively. The people we send our healing love energy to may not feel it but for the person doing this meditation, it can have profound benefits.

The Elegance of Resilience

Once we have the ability to see pain as something good, necessary, and natural – a part of being alive, we can begin to experience the raw, pure sweetness of sorrow. We can lean into it's beauty. For me, it reminds me that I am alive – that I am a feeling, experiencing, loving, passionate being. I cannot feel such deep lows if I don't feel such deep loves. When we are grateful for every pleasure and pain our lives provide us – what a paradigm shift. Our smaller troubles begin to appear much more trivial. And our tragedies become more poignant. Pain, sorrow, suffering and all the variations of hardship we endure are beautiful, elegantly designed gifts from the field of love energy that I call God. They are devastating, crippling, heartbreaking opportunities for us to grow and see how strong we are. They are part of the beauty of living.

The moral of this story is to become at peace with pain so we can trust the healing process. Remember that pain always eases or ends, grief is another form of love, minor trivialities are meaningless in the whole scheme of things, momentous tragedies are natural aspects of being alive that show us how strong we can be, and we have to lean into our suffering. We literally must feel to heal. We must lean into the terrible, glorious, frightening, beautiful feelings of pain that remind us that we are alive and that we are capable of great love and great sorrow.

I spent months that turned into years of not wanting to be alive anymore. Life was too painful because of the arthritis in every joint, the lack of intimacy and connection that I longed for, and my inability to be the mother I truly wanted to be for my children. I’m so glad I held on because I came out the other side. You will too.

Love Annie xoxo

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