Why Bad Things Happen to Good People Part II: Pain as a Function of Happiness

"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey."  Kenji Miyazawa

As stated in the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

 Happy (adj)

: feeling pleasure and enjoyment because of your life, situation, etc.

: showing or causing feelings of pleasure and enjoyment

: pleased or glad about a particular situation, event, etc.

     If this is the case, it would seem that pain is the very antithesis to happiness, and in the pursuit of happiness, pain should be avoided at all costs. This is usually the first reaction, because pain is a universal signal of danger. Emotionally, it is not necessarily that we are physically at risk, but even scarier that our identity is in danger, so, naturally the body and mind react negatively against this possibility.

     The basic defense mechanisms of the psyche, known as "fight, flight or freeze" are designed to protect us as we are now in this present moment. Who we are now is a compilation of the thoughts and expectations we have cultivated and assume to be correct based on the amount of repetitive stimulus we have encountered. It then protects anything that lives on the inside of the consciousness and views it as correct or preferred, and anything on the outside is seen as the enemy. This is why it is so hard to be wrong: it literally feels like a near-death experience, because it means that the self we have been defending may be invalid and not worth protecting.

     Truth worth changing for has to be bigger and more expansive than what we already believe, otherwise it is not worth the effort. Anything new will be too large to fit within our current comprehension capabilities, which means it is us that has to expand, and not the concept that has to shrink in order for us to get it.

With each new thought that we incorporate into the psyche, it requires a death and rebirth. It is like death, because the structure of how we understand ourselves has to break in order to facilitate the new idea. The synapses as they currently connect the brain  have to be interrupted, and new longer, larger lines have to be created in order to encompass the new truth or reality. This feels dangerous. Having to break down what feels permanent is what we want to avoid, as it makes it blatantly obvious that we are not content, or in other words, not happy.

     It's kind of like when I learned about Cold Stone Creamery. When I was little, getting soft-serve ice cream from the local grocery store was the highlight of my week (yes, I have always been a foodie). I had no idea that something as life changing as Berry, Berry Good even existed until I was a teenager. Up until that point, I thought soft serve was the pinnacle of the store-based ice cream experience. And I would have continued to think that if I had never been introduced to something different. This is what pain does for us. It informs us that there are other, better, more satisfying options out there by helping us see that we are actually not satisfied, something that we would never take the time, or want to admit unless we felt uncomfortable. This is pain's function. It carves out room for more happiness by uncovering a void.

According to Wendy Ulrich "Words and ideas without soul-level understanding are not only inadequate but also potentially dangerous, since people do not keep searching for something they think they have already found." 

Pain heightens the level of our experience which directly affects our ability to understand and comprehend fact and truth.

We usually protect who we are now, not what we are becoming, so in all honesty, we really don't know what happiness could feel like yet. Pain gets us to that 'yet' by expanding our capacity to feel.

We associate pain with failure of some kind because it questions the validity of what it is protecting. But if we were to see pain as a friend pointing out a better route, we would embrace the pain and let it guide us towards happiness.



Next Post: Why Bad Things Happen to Good People   Part III: The Happiness Myth

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People Part I: Introduction

     Why do bad things happen to good people?

     I have spent a lot of years thinking about this question, and the more I consider it, the more grateful I become for what I have experienced. This question has changed my life, because it has made me a permanently happier person.

     The first thing I want to address is the idea of action and consequence as it applies to the concept of happiness. We assume if we do a good job, if we try to be good, if our intentions are good that

good things will happen and we will find happiness. Right? Yes and No. What version of happiness are we going by? Contentment in the moment does not equal happiness. As far as I have seen, we use happiness to mean a removal of any uncomfortable emotion or happening. Unfortunately, this idea really limits our capacity to be happy. That's like saying the perfect weather is where it's always sunny, but forgetting that without the rain, everything would die, no matter how sunny or beautiful it is in the beginning. It has to rain to last.

     Happiness is not an if-then statement. Here's a rather personal example: "If I was a more ideal weight, I would be happy." I ultimately will not be happier if I was skinnier, or if I was a different body type. The real issue is my personal insecurity, not my body type, and until I am willing to see it for what it is, dreaming about an ideal weight circumstance will only create a sense of desperate longing that keeps me on constant goose chase that can only end in disappointment. Why? Because it's not real. Because I am basing my acceptance of who I am on a label someone handed to me. In essence, I am giving up my power and placing it in the hands of a fickle idea that moves with the tide of social acceptance. The irony is that the moments I am willing to accept what I have to offer now are the moments when I feel empowered to change. More on this idea later.

     We are lying to ourselves when we rely on our circumstances to make us happy, or wait for specific events to give us permission to be happy. The lie comes in the fact that we place the responsibility of how we are feeling on our circumstances and therefore effectively avoid actually feeling the true version of our emotions. Instead, we end up experiencing any of the various defensive emotions, which include anger, blame, anxiety, depression, and aggressiveness. These feelings function to mask, protect or defend what the heart is really trying to process.
     Sometimes defensive emotions are the only way to communicate or find the strength to address what is being felt. I think the most shocking experience I've had of this nature is once when someone I know was reacting in an unhealthy way to a conversation we were having and I ended up yelling at them. Like full blown yelling at them, complete with dramatic hand gestures and the works. What followed was one of the sweetest exchanges of familial love that I have known. That's only worked that one time, and it has become more than obvious to me that communicating when two people are feeling defensive emotions is an experience very similar to beating one's head against a wall...the headache is about equal in both cases. But mostly, defensive emotions become just that, a defensive play that sidesteps the our ultimate goal, which is happiness.

     Just like in any battle, the defense has to be broken before access can be granted to the castle. It is the same way with our emotions. Something has to break, before something else can be changed, otherwise we will stagnate and eventually regress.

     This is where pain comes in. Pain serves a function in our lives that facilitates our happiness. Its function is to break down defenses, so access can be granted to the castle.




Next post: Why Bad Things Happen to Good People   Part II: Pain as a Function of Happiness