The Unbearable: Destroy, Define, or Develop

One day, out of nowhere, something will happen that will absolutely shatter your world. I'm very sorry, but this is just the condition of being human. Just as we fall deeply in love and experience the most profound happiness, we will also experience the horrible, unbearable sides of life. You will feel as though you cannot withstand it. Often, you will feel completely alone in this pain as we don't experience these events at the same time. You will feel more separate from others than you've ever been.

In my life, I have experienced this several times - emotionally and physically. In the last few years, we lost a child in the worst way possible, I was completely incapacitated by a stroke, and recently, we lost our faithful dog of 12 years. The week after that, I experienced the pain of kidney stones -- said to be one of the worst pains a human can experience. 

So what do you do with the pain? I figured that there are three options: 

1. You can let it destroy you and completely give up on life, spiral into alcoholism and addiction, and wait to die; 
2. You can let it define you and live your life in constant reference to the pain like an alcoholic whose entire life becomes AA; or 
3. You can let it develop you.

If you choose to develop yourself, you can also use life to balance the unbearable in life. Yes, I had a debilitating stroke, but my relationship with my wife pulled me out of my dark days. The means and methods to develop yourself and grow beyond pain look different from person to person. This isn't meant to be a handbook, but an expression of understanding. The point of development is for you to develop spiritually and the methodology of your spiritual development is completely up to you. "Spiritual" means different things to different people. If you need to seek wisdom from a guru, then seek them out and be earnest in your quest. If you want to invest yourself in the Gospels and seek meaning through Christ, then make the time. 

The secret is that you will bear the unbearable no matter what. Life goes on. All you have is the choice of how you will bear it. But I promise if you try, just try to bear the unbearable. If you can look at it not as a punishment or a curse, but as part of your curriculum in this life, you will unlock strength inside yourself that you could never imagine.  

It seems unfair at first, but the unbearable pain of life is not linked to merit. If you can understand that this is not a punishment for anything you've done. If you can understand that this is how the universe is unfolding and accept that this is just the way it is now, you can transcend your pain. In doing so, you will be able to help other people through their pain. 

I find myself in a condition where people who meet me are inclined to express their true feelings. One man I met at a dinner party sat with me for five minutes and told me how much he missed his brother who passed away. Another woman told me about how she missed her mother whom she cared for in a wheelchair for three years. She wanted to pray with me. Another man told me that being stuck in a wheelchair like me was the worst thing he could imagine. I used to worry that these people were opening up to me, and I wouldn't have the right words for them. Then I remembered the words of Ram Dass who said, "You cannot take away people's suffering, but you can become an environment for them to begin letting go of their suffering." I feel good about that because, in the end, all we are really doing is walking each other home.