Pain is not optional - suffering is

As I was thinking about this saying, I was struck by many instances of where it is not true. For example, I will keep away from the steam in my kettle because it will scald me and that hurts. Similarly, I will take care when crossing the road as being hit by a vehicle will undoubtedly be painful.

So what is the meaning of the saying? What message is it conveying?

As a counsellor, I can see more sense in the saying. I do not see clients who are struggling with physical pain. The NHS is better qualified to deal with that. Indeed the physical pain a person may be feeling is what makes the person seek out the help available with the NHS. Perhaps it is because the suffering has become unbearable that the person seeks out how to alleviate the pain. The pain has served a purpose. It has made us aware that something physical is not as it should be and thus we seek out a remedy.

With counselling perhaps a parallel experience is happening for the client. They are in pain, or as Carl Rogers says “the client is in a state of distress”. The type of pain may be felt by the body i.e. headaches, fatigue, stomach upsets, etc, but primarily it is felt internally, emotionally perhaps even spiritually. The pain felt is what motivates a client to seek out help, to seek out counselling. 

This does not deny or diminish the impact of any pain. The saying “moved to tears” speaks to this. By contrast, I feel it speaks to the strength of the pain. The pain is enough to cause a client to reach out for help, to acknowledge, on some level, that their best efforts to resolve the issues causing pain, their resilience, pride and determination to tough it out have not worked.

That feels like a very uncomfortable and unpleasant place to be.

As unpleasant as it is to be distressed it is a given in any person's life that they will experience distress. Distress can be used to describe any number of symptoms. Be it depression, stress, low self-worth, anxiety, claustrophobia, social unease etc. As the symptoms are many and varied so are the causes. Neglect, abuse, isolation, being unheard, feeling incompetent or unable to effect change. Again, many and varied reasons.

But the person who reaches out for help, who becomes a client, is, on a very fundamental level, acknowledging that change can happen, needs to happen and will happen. The client may not be able to visualise the how, the when and the why but they believe that change can happen. Change sufficient enough to ease or cease the pain they are feeling.

In these circumstances, a competent and caring counsellor comes into their own. Many clients, when given a caring and supportive space i.e. a counselling session, are able to, perhaps for the first time, able to see that the potential for change exists. When the client experiences a counsellor who is willing to listen, not judge and to hold the space where they can express their anxiety and distress then the potential for change can be realised.

At a pace set by the client, the client is then able to see the pain for what it is. It is serving us by compelling us to seek out a remedy. When clients can acknowledge and accept the causes of their distress, pain or anxiety they are better able to conceive ways of changing that distress. 

When a noise is scaring us, as we try to sleep, we are powerless over how to deal with it. When we get up, investigate the noise, and find out it is just the wind rattling a can, branches scraping the window or even cats fighting we are able to deal with it. We either pick up the can or accept that now is not a good time to prune the bushes or disturb the cats from their fighting.

So with counselling. We know we cannot make a perfect past, a past where events have hurt us deeply, we cannot change what has happened or what we have done but we can accept it. By accepting our past we can choose how we let it affect us. We can be victims of it and carry the effects around daily or we can acknowledge and accept the events and then find ways of managing how the past causes us to feel. We can move from surviving the past to thriving in the present.

Similarly, be it the bullying boss, the narcissistic partner, the unloving and uncaring parents, or the nagging doubt that we are not good enough, we can safely explore what it is we want to change and how to achieve this. 

A counsellor who is able to sit beside you as you retell the anguish of the past or the fear of the future builds a level of trust with the client. They create a therapeutic bond, a therapeutic relationship with the client. This relationship is unique and can be very powerful. 

Numerous times I have seen clients who are able to seek out the change they want, the change they need when they are able to experience a therapeutic relationship with a competent and caring counsellor. This may be the first time a client feels genuinely listened to and accepted. Accepted for who they are and what they are. Even if it is not the first experience of a counsellor the client has, that they are continuing to seek out a solution speaks highly of the client's determination to change.

Without the possibility of change, we are left with an absence of hope. An absence of hope is not somewhere desirable to be. Seeing no chance of change is very close to suicide and that is never a good place to be.

So be it the partner we know we do not want to be in a relationship with, the parents we no longer have contact with, the boss who is a narcissist, the estranged children or the legacy of addiction, the bully or the toxic nature of our social group they can all be addressed in counselling. The potential to change them is always there.

With counselling, we can find ways to change any set of circumstances. Either change how we experience them or how we let them affect us. Knowing we can change them is so very powerful and a good counsellor can provide us with a safe place to figure out how we want to enact the change. 

I hope you can take hope from this article and I hope that you find a counsellor who is able to provide just what you need to enact change. I can assure you that although the distress might be known and you are used to it, the fear of what change is like can be overwhelming. However the benefits of changing your distress, and anxiety far outweigh the discomfort and pain you are feeling.

Indeed, pain is not optional but suffering is. Have you suffered enough?