Facing Sufering. Roberto Badenas

Facing Sufering - Roberto Badenas


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. Pascal, Pensées [Thoughts], § XV.

      8 . W. Brueggerman, The Message of the Psalms, Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1984, pp. 51-52.

      9 . See Paul Tournier, Creative Suffering, Harper & Row, 1983.

      10 . See The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh, (Selected and edited by Ronald de Leeuw, translated by Arnold Pomerans), London: Penguin Classics, 1997.

      11 . Reine Caulet, « Je crée danc je souffre, » dossier Douleur, pp. 35-36.

      3

      Heeding the

      Warning Signs

      “The art of life is the art of avoiding pain.”

      Thomas Jefferson

      Pain has allies

      Fear

      Loneliness and abandonment

      Because suffering is such a private feeling, it is often accompanied by a strong sense of loneliness. People who suffer chronically often aggravate their situation with the feeling that no one understands or sympathizes with them as they deserve. If they then begin to think that they are a nuisance, or a bother, this further increases their discomfort.

      Frustration and discouragement

      Is not the one that kills with a blow,

      But the one that, drop by drop,

      Undermines the soul and breaks it.”

      Nevertheless, all these trials can help us learn. Experience teaches us to be wiser and more prudent, to protect ourselves. We should also understand that it doesn’t mean that we should put our protective barriers up so high that they isolate us from reality. Because if after a broken heart, we don’t love again, we can fall into the trap of resentment and hatred. Disappointment, if untreated, worsens into bitterness, and bitterness into cynicism. After we hit bottom in the sea of life, it is only by trying to swim that we can float again.

      It is human to make mistakes. But one of the most important things we can learn in life is to take away positive lessons from our mistakes and move on. If we are self-indulgent in our status as victims, if we insist on blaming everything on life’s events, if we anchor ourselves in situations of complaint and pity, it will be difficult for us to take charge of our lives. Resentment and frustration do nothing but exacerbate suffering. The cure for bad memories is not fighting them but making good ones.

      The shadow of the past


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