Happiness has become an obsession, a fad. Last year, more than 1,000 new books were released on Amazon.com alone on the subject.
I know I caught the fever and was deep in the middle of my own “Happiness Project,” complete with hours of daily visualizations, gratitude practices and focusing on my lovely relationship — when my partner suddenly left me.
As long as things are going our way, it is easy enough to feel grateful and satisfied with life, when we are actually sleepwalking on the surface, wrapped up in cozy illusions. My happiness evaporated pretty quickly when my world shattered, and I was left struggling with what felt like a knife in my heart.
When something hurts like hell, when crisis and loss strike, it shakes you awake and takes you down into deep waters. These are places we have spent our lives trying to avoid. In the deep, it is “sink or swim” because suffering either opens or closes us up tighter than before.
Normally, we avoid the truth and mystery (and unlived pain) of our depths. We believe we should be able to find happiness without suffering and so we cling to the surface of life. But when circumstances plunge us into the depths, we need to go beyond our aversion. We need to learn to befriend suffering.
I knew that turning towards suffering can be medicine for soul sickness, a radical remedy for the fear of deep truths and love. I knew that pain taken rightly can bring lots of good things: self-acceptance, compassion and gratitude for what we have. The difficulty lay in knowing how exactly to take pain and suffering “rightly” — when every fiber in my being wanted instinctively to reject both.
Listening to the Messages in Pain
When I was finally able to suspend my opinion that suffering was wrong, or that there was something wrong with me for being in pain for so long, I made a discovery of great significance. I realized that, apart from my beliefs and opinions, I did not know the meaning or purpose of suffering.
Oddly this realization made me happy. When I finally stopped judging and resisting and simply said, “Yes, I do not know what this is,” the pain took me down and down and down. Stripped of my opinions, I found quaky strange movements, sensations and messages in heartache and humiliation,in grief and rage.
Pain forces you to ask what Einstein said is the most important question: Is this a benevolent universe? Does anyone care? When we take the time to listen to what the grief and pain are telling us, suffering not only stirs the deepest questions, it births the answers.
Touched with respect and curiosity, suffering reveals itself as a prayer — a prayer of the heart yearning for freedom, for warmth, for goodness and love, for a way back home. Through the cracks of prayer and longing and brokenness, a power arises that cures the isolation and hollow jitteriness of depth deprivation. It whispers, I do care.
That is the paradox I discovered of both happiness and pain. A warm, life-affirming mystery, a nourishing presence, pulses to be born in the depths of pain. It waits only to hear our yes to pour its sweet strength — our true happiness — into the soul.
Thank you for this, Sandra.
This line stood out for me: “I realized that, apart from my beliefs and opinions, I did not know the meaning or purpose of suffering.”
I am finding myself here lately, in a place where I just don’t know, and must admit I am at a loss. A part of me maintains some kind of faith, and declines abysmal despair, but at the same time I am wary of false hope, and I decline as well what feel like too-easy reassurances or contrived attempts to get myself squared away before a true answer has grown in me.
I want to stay true to this particular passage in life, so no sugar coating, minimal New Age cliches, and a recognition of the limits of old standbys like “you’ll feel better in the morning.” I don’t want to wallow, and I do want to be available to any movement of a true hope that may blow through my soul, but I really do not want to fake it, to deceive myself, to abstract from felt experience, or to translate subtle movements of the soul into glib words and cheaply acquired concepts that go down smooth and convince me I’ve got this thing sewn up and under control.
I’ve been through periods of depression before (to use a label that’s ready to hand, but which perhaps loses the character of whatever this heaviness is to an abstraction), and I feel better equipped to handle this one just because I have some amount of trust that downs and ups make up the rhythm of life. (That, and I’ve learned some things about tending my own psychic well-being that I didn’t know before.) But I remind myself that I don’t know how this one turns out, that I am perhaps being asked to remain open to new developments, rather than struggle to make yesterday’s solution fit today’s situation.
I do trust in a life-affirming mystery whose sweetness and strength can be touched by getting in touch with a place deep within myself. It has happened often enough that hope has been restored to me after a good cry or a period of meditation. But something in my old way of relating to this source of life is no longer adequate, and I think I am asked to empty my cup and wait patiently that it might be filled again.
(And right now I cannot avoid the less beautiful qualities of my soul either. Old patterns of holding myself apart, feeling much aggrieved, lingering feelings of superiority, etc, are making their presence felt more acutely now that I can’t so easily summon my accustomed veneer of sweetness to smooth them over.)
Thank you, Erin, kindred spirit, for such a thoughtful reply. I feel you further articulating my own desires and concerns. Something wants to get it all squared away, when indeed it is not, and I figure likely never will be! The highlights and hopes appear as little lights for me, sometimes after long periods of disorientation and no light. When one appears to illumine the landscape, such a sigh of relief comes with it. Ah,there is a way forward. Then maybe the too quick jump to fill in the remaining darkness with my dreams and visions. The “not knowing what this is” has become my best guide.
I wish you strength going forward.
Hi,
Thanks for sharing yourself. I know all to well the very shaky foundation that once seemed stable/familiar can be. I’m speaking from my own huge betrayal of my ex. An intimate partner/soulmates betrayal is a pain I cannot even describe. It takes many years to heal from such a huge betrayal. Everything that was the fabric you trusted in is gone leaving you clinging onto the familiar even though it is no longer serving you and you know is not wise. Leaving the familiar and being thrown into the unknown is damn scary! I don’t know whom I am somedays and every decision requires a new choice to bring about change. Sometimes it takes a long time to choose, so much self doubt, it just feels so strange to make changes. You don’t recognise yourself in the mirror anymore, you are having a new identity that you are having to get to know. Its like learning to walk all over again. I.don’t know about.you but I know that for me it is one of the most painful, scary, liberating times in my life. Somedays I want to scream and have it all just go away, it gets too much, somedays I just want to sleep all day, sometimes I feel happy, sometimes I sink into a deep depression and sometimes I am very mad with the world. Just some of my thoughts. Blessings.
Thank you for sharing the strange fragility you are feeling. It has meant a lot to me to know we are not alone in an experience that feels so singular, like no one else in the world could possibly have survived it. When I saw your comment, I had just reviewed the final copy for “Love and the Mystery of Betrayal”. Here are a couple lines, so similar to what you wrote: “I could not recall ever hurting so much. It was as if a shard of glass was embedded in my chest. I wanted to cry, to scream, to break everything in sight to make it all stop.” Here also is a quote I use in the book: “So this was betrayal. It was like being left alone in the desert at dusk without water or warmth. It left your mouth dry and will broken. It sapped your tears and made you hollow.”—Anna Godbersen, Rumors / Sending a prayer and as much warmth as can travel in this strange online medium.
Hi,
Thanks for your reply. I still wish it never happened really but I know one day it will heal and I never thought I would ever say that. I relate to you but don’t believe one should ever say I know “exactly” how you feel, that would be an untruth. I’m sure your book will do well. Most books written with soul and heart should. People sometimes think that those who follow their innate spiritual birthright don’t suffer, so telling the truth of the pain gives us the chance to show our humanness. I’m sorry for your pain, but blessed be the gifts that come as a direct result of the pain and trauma. Is your book your own personal story? I ask because for me it would be nice to read someone else’s story and remember I am not aione in the human sense. Thank you for the connection and sending warm radiating hugs across the plains.
P.S. My ex is a narcissisist like yours was. It took me a long time to finally see it and even become aware of narcissism. It’s a really evil personality disorder. 2 years of this was enough. I’m just glad you shared by creating a website. It is healing but painful too. God bless you.
Thank you, Lee, for pointing that of course, I could never know “exactly” what anyone is going through, although sometimes the sense of relief and recognition of similar joy or pain makes it feel that way. And, yes, the book is based on my story. Sending blessings for continued deepening into your recovery.