Someone Today Is Sharing Your Pain

Each day is a reminder that you are never alone with your pain, fears, needs or suffering. Just looking around the world at any given time and you will find others in your same sorrowful predicament.

Everyday there are thousands of those in mourning for loved ones and friends who were lost, due to sickness, accidents, or natural disasters.

Most recently,  four thousand plus human lives were snatched just this weekend in Nepal. Life on planet earth despite all of modern advancements remains as fragile as ever.

I know each one of us have our own specific needs, worries, or agony.  This post is not about minimising yours at all, but only to encourage you to see beyond the borders of your own suffering.

Your pain belongs to you of course and only you know to the extent that you feel your own suffering. Your pain might be much more severe that the pain of another, but of course that “other” who may indeed have less suffering that you, can only feel and judge his own pain from his own perspective, not from yours.

Knowing that someone else has the same painful situation as you, does not take away your own pain of course, but knowing you are not the only person on the planet with that pain confronts you with the reality that your suffering is not unique.

We can all take some comfort that as we hurt, so do many others who are walking, or have walked in our shoes.   Of course, we can fool ourselves into thinking that our painful ordeal is unique or more important than someone’s else, but that would be not only totally unrealistic, but extremely narcissistic!

Sharing the human experience of suffering helps takes us away from the acute intensity of our own.  Most therapists, if they are truthful to you, will tell you that listening to someone’s elses pain is a distraction from their own.

It certainly does not minimises it, but witnessing the torment of another person, can certainly put your own into another perspective.  You do not have to be a therapist to witness another’s pain.

Go on any self help forum online of your choice and you can read through waves of painful testimonies.   If their suffering is a reflection of your own, you will walk away with the comfort I call collective comfort.

With collectively sharing our  suffering, we are also inviting collective comfort.  That is precisely one of the therapeutic values of group psychotherapy and self help groups.

Collective comfort is the awareness that you are never totally alone with your sorrow. You have people who you do not know or will never meet, who can describe in detail what you are going through with pretty good accuracy.

Not only can they be of comfort, but you can gain insight into your own situation.  This insight may be helpful in formulating how you want to handle your problems, based on other stories of how they are navigating through their own turbulent waters.

This is the very premise of how self help groups, especially 12 steps ones, can inspire hope and affect changes in your life by adopting the philosophy that healing is never a solo project.

Not every soul who hears about your problem is going to have the same amount of empathy, but generally there are always several that will give you  their own shoulder to lean on.

The bottom line is that drowning in your own sorrow only makes it more intense and even worse, isolates you.  If no one knows that you are hurting, then you are depriving yourself of receiving empathy and comfort from others.

Personally, despite whatever I may be going through, I am unable to not be emotionally touched by someone else’s hurt.  Empathizing with others is an excellent way to get you out of you!

Caring about the plight of another person, and showing empathy towards them is also a measure of your humanity and your emotional IQ.   We are humbled not only by our own suffering, but that of others.

Since my life is anchored by my faith, and my prayers provide a rudder to navigate through dark times, I find it uplifting and nourishing to be able to pray for others.   We may find ourselves powerless to directly help someone, especially those we do not know, but prayers are carried to the divine source of all love; God.

Praying for others is a gift to them, but most of all I feel it is a gift of joy to yourself, knowing you are there for them.   As a therapist, I have always felt that it is a sacred moment to witness the suffering of another human being  and spiritually fulfilling to offer help.

Saints, who are like special faith filled friends in heaven, having lived the human experience, know what we are going through and are always there to help too.   Many had very difficult or painful life stories, that gives each of them certain gifts, insights, and awareness of exactly the same pain you too are facing.

With all the immense sufferings going on at any given time, I feel guilty and selfish to  pray for my own specific needs without praying for those known and  unknown souls who are hurting  in different ways, but also those whose hearts are heavy with my own shared pain.

I like to think that each prayer is like lighting a candle to disperse the darkness. Collective prayers filling the universe can bring about conscious shifts of change.

As I have said before, I do not have to know you individually in order to care about you, and your suffering.  I just know that you are there, and that alone touches me with empathy.

Healing hugs and prayers to all of you in need.