Minimized Suffering

“But others have it worse.”

“I know it’s not that bad.”

“It could be worse.”

“But it’s fine.”

Have you ever found yourself saying these things?

I have heard it numerous times amidst sessions with clients. They share their pain and suffering but say one of these phrases at the end. I think it is often done to give themselves a push in moving through their distress and to give themselves perspective on their suffering in hopes of minimizing the amount of pain they feel.

I can’t say there are too many times I have loved sitting in my own pain and suffering, either, and can equally think of many times that I have wanted to do whatever I could to move through it. But, trying to do so with this line of thinking will actually keep you stuck in your pain longer than if you accepted the full weight of the pain that you feel.

I talk about leaning into our emotions more in this post, but, in short, as hard as it may be, the quickest way to move through our emotions is to fully lean into them and embrace them. I know that there can be immense fear when the emotions in front of you are hard and challenging and make you think that if you lean into them you’ll never come out. And while the peak of the challenging emotions is going to be all of those things, emotions are like a wave, and the peak is met with a leveling out and then a coming back down. Meaning the emotions won’t stay hard and all-consuming forever.

I think part of these sayings is also rooted in guilt or shame for our feelings towards our situation. We remind ourselves that there are people suffering over harder things than what we are going through, so we shouldn’t be feeling what we are.

Again, it’s okay to want to be out of your pain and suffering, but there is no limited container of suffering for the world. If you choose to lean into the amount of suffering you are experiencing, you aren’t taking any suffering away from people going through what you believe to be more challenging situations. No one benefits from you negating the amount of suffering you are feeling.

So, feel it. I know it’s scary. And I know the leap right before you fully lean into it can carry a lot of grief and fear in never coming out of your suffering.

But you will. It will take time, leaning into your support system, and perhaps reaching out to therapy. But emotions peak, and they come back down. You will get better, you will feel better, and suffering will not be your consuming identity forever.