The paradoxical suffering in vicarious grief

What happens when the suffering’s not yours but it’s another’s you care about and love?  Very much a parent’s and a grandparent’s domain when a child or a grandchild is suffering and there’s little relief we can bring.

There’s also a vicarious grief that children suffer when their parents are suffering or when they can’t make sense of suffering—when it’s impossible for adults to make meaning of suffering, how much harder is it for children?

Then there’s the guilt the grieving suffer for what others are vicariously suffering.

As such, we don’t suffer the same when a little removed from the loss, but it is a vicarious form of pain, and it can feel less resolvable.

It doesn’t take much as a person in that position of bearing vicarious grief to imagine the worst occurring in our loved one’s life and then to live out of that anxious place.

I’ve been there so many times, yet I’ve also noted others in my life bear that place for me—my parents when my first marriage failed, and both my wife’s parents and mine, and my growing/grown children, when Sarah and I lost Nathanael.

We are all bearing a fair amount of vicarious suffering at present for the people of Ukraine, as we watch and witness families being torn apart, civilian losses, environmental catastrophes, and beautiful cities being destroyed by war.

Vicarious grief by its very nature has even less control over loss than the people bearing the losses directly (which is often zero control).  Though the pain may not be as raw, there’s a real sense of helplessness about the second-hand grief of grieving for the one who’s grieving.

Whilst it may not be crushing in and of itself, it can certainly be debilitating as our minds are consumed for the ones whose lives are strewn and vanquished.

Our burden is to do all we can, even if we think that what we can do isn’t enough.  It is.  It is enough.  We can know that we’re doing our best.

Our best is good enough because it’s all we can give.  It has to be good enough.  And it is.

There is comfort in the concept that at least our loved ones who are bearing the direct brunt of grief have us, they have our support, our love, our prayers, and concern, even if we privately wonder if we’ve got the energy to sustain it.

Vicarious grief, in being one step further removed, helps us through perspective.  We may feel like we’ve got nothing to say, nothing to add, nothing to contribute, but at least we’re there for when we’re truly needed.

I recall two salient moments when I was contemplating the end, not knowing how I could go on, and on both occasions, God used my parents to save me.  On both occasions, the turnaround was stark; from the depths I reached and received a love that both times proved instrumental for hope.

They might say, “We don’t know what we said that made such a difference,” but the point is it’s not really always about the words.  It’s about the presence of loving support.

If you’re in that situation now, fretting for someone in particular, a family, a country, or the terrifying realities that are playing out in your life and time, give yourself space to know that you’re not alone.  Between the pandemic, thought of wars, natural disasters, etc, the people of the world already have a higher ambient level of stress.

Loneliness and mental health concerns abound, and while that’s not good, what is encouraging is we’re not alone.  Like always, we’ll get through it, and best when we get through it together.

It can be a real gift, even in our overwhelm, to covet empathy for others.

Vicarious grief is of itself a trauma of its own and it deserves to be validated as real and necessary of its own support.

If you’re in that season of life, my prayer for you is that you’d have that support available to you and that you’d reach out and receive it.  It’s not a weakness to reach out for support, it actually takes vulnerability and trust, and those are strengths.

Through anniversaries, God’s real and moving

Six years ago today was a traumatic day—a day that started a long, long season of pain.  On that day something happened that I had no idea would happen.  What happened shouldn’t have happened, yet it did.  The details don’t matter six years on.

The season of pain I refer to occurred because I and we were blindsided.  We just didn’t see it coming. Days after that ill-fated February 25, 2016 meeting in the early afternoon, it was Sarah’s fortieth birthday—unfortunately, that was a terrible day too.

All those days were marred in that two-week period, and beyond it for months and even years were stained by the anxiety of being assailed and of having lost the future, so the present was overwhelming.

2016 was easily the hardest year of my life, which is an interesting statement to make when you consider we lost Nathanael in 2014 and I lost my first marriage in 2003.

Six years ago today I was cast into a Jeremiah 38 cistern that took so long to claw my way out of.  Though many things were going right in our lives from the viewpoint of retrospect, I had been placed in so many situations that would never have been my choice to be in, yet so many of them were actually blessed.  Many situations involved challenges that I really didn’t know if I could overcome—but I did overcome them in faith.

Six years later to the day I sit in the office, and receive a call that puts me in a position of deciding who might be offered to go over two thousand kilometres to an Incident.  I could go or I could offer it to someone else equally and ably qualified.  Yet, it’s mine to choose.  I choose the latter, not because I’m generous, but because I sense it’s the right thing to do.  Without going into the details, it’s a blessed thing to do because it’s right.

Thirty minutes later, driving home, I reflect over what just happened.  I was just so amazed by what God oversaw as I trusted the leading.  It wasn’t a huge thing, but it was significant.  And so many relatively small things have huge relative significance.

Yet three years to the date, February 25, 2019, and partial recovery was complete when I started a position as a project manager overseeing the development of school curriculum to help children become peacemakers for life.  I was trusted and deemed capable enough to manage professional staff and a budget, a senior leader on a national team.  Three years previously I could not have foreseen me in such a position.  I was successful in this role because we were all successful in our respective roles.  I used a facilitative leadership style and everyone gelled.

I find God redeems so many tragic moments of my life by reminding me through anniversaries that as he was there in my darkest hour, just as he is there for me again when times are good.

I have so many of these moments happen to me that the ‘coincidences’ are just too coincidental.

When you’re struggling to see God and you’re feeling it’s all just a tragic waste, know that God will work it for his good.  And for your benefit.  In his timing.

Warding against the perils of denial and cynicism

“Guard your heart with everything you have in you,” is one way to interpret Proverbs 4:23, “for out of it is the spring of life.”  This is the narrow way that Jesus spoke about, and the road less travelled, according to M. Scott Peck.

Yet, inevitably, life will take us on some perilous journeys where we’ll dabble in denial on the one hand and cynicism on the other.

Cynicism says, “Life is a crock, there’s nothing and nobody to trust other than those who agree with me, there are conspiracies at every turn, and let’s make everything as complex as we can, unless of course we find a thing ludicrous—which is an easy way of rejecting what might possibly be good (to others).”

Those who end up cynical are seething scorners who constantly brood looking for the bad.

Denial is the trap on the other side.  Those that are here cannot contemplate venturing out into life.  “Life is all too hard, situations everywhere are too scary, it’s easier to hide away and anesthetise oneself, safe and comfortable to dream about what won’t be dared and won.”

Both cynicism and denial are tragedies.  Burned by life is the former, the latter has been buried.  One scoffs at hope, the other doesn’t dare to hope.

The narrow way of neither going into cynicism nor denial requires the protecting of one’s heart.

Life is tough, just as there are tough situations and tough people, and conflict will damage us, as will loss, if we let them.

When we fail, we need to go easy on ourselves, learning humbly what we can, without saying to ourselves that we’re useless, worthless, or stupid.  It takes a lot of humility and courage to accept the temporary shame of having failed.  Such shame is connected to self-condemnation, so we must resist that inner voice saying, “How could you do such a thing?”

When we find ourselves in conflict, we must hold the moment sufficiently so that we don’t react and make the moment worse, especially because our biases and self-defence come to the fore.  Giving ourselves a few moments, hours, and even a day or two to weigh matters is wisdom.

Realistically, we can only negotiate conflict from a position of having seen OUR contribution.  It’s both peace and freedom to enter into dialogue knowing what WE could have done better.  If it’s all about the other person and what they did wrong, we’ve got nothing, and reconciliation has no hope.

There’s just no peace unless we contribute peace.

BUT when we find ourselves treated unjustly, we protect our heart when we attribute the other person’s attack or snub as something going on for them; we resist feeling like it’s all our fault.

When we suffer loss we WILL enter grief—and so we need to give ourselves permission to grieve well, rather than sink into denial or rage against the pain in cynicism.

This is an allowance that grief takes time, and it’s the maturity to accept that a life we didn’t want to say goodbye to is now gone.  Typically, it takes months even years to come to terms with such confounding concepts.

In our overload and overwhelm, where there’s just no time for us to be us, it’s so easy to become jaded.  Life feels so unjust when there are so many demands on us.  We go from one thing to another to another to another.  There seems to be no peace and no opportunity to empty our minds and let the waves of the shore sweep over us.  But we need to find ourselves a portion of hope—a few things each week that we can look forward to.

To get beyond bitter and to move on to become better is contingent on protecting our heart.  It’s never too late to repent of the anger in cynicism or the fear in denial.  In fact, it’s life when we do.

Don’t stress when they don’t understand

Some people exist to ruffle other people’s feathers.  Some do it out of spite because there’s a lot of unrelenting anger inside them.  Others put on a front that they want the best for us, but when the test comes that theory goes out the window.  It’s all about them.

And then there are those few who take a great deal of pleasure not even pretending with schadenfreude and the more they infuriate people the better—trolls—but worst of all, they often present differently, but inwardly they’re mischief makers.

Know any of the above?  Experienced any of the above?  Most of us have.

Anticipate that conflict is the home ground of some.  They thrive on it.  Especially when you take it seriously, and definitely when it upsets you.  For them it’s “game on”!

These vexatious people are difficult to relate with at best, and at worst, impossible.

One boundary we can set ourselves—in anticipation—is to be very shrewd about what we’ll allow to upset us.  Them misunderstanding us is one thing, but their goading is altogether something different.

Feeling misunderstood is one way a person might choose to goad us, but if we cater for the fact that they know how we’ll respond when we’re misunderstood, we prepare our hearts to know they don’t care to understand—and they may especially see it as an opportunity to ruffle us.  Give them that opportunity?  Never!

Our opportunity then is to ensure they have fewer prospects to know how upset we may feel.  This is done by preparing in advance to know we won’t be understood, by lowering our expectations, by guarding our heart, by sweating what they might consider ‘small stuff’ less, and even using cool wit—humour disarms just about every situation.

Then we anticipate that they’ll not be satisfied because they haven’t gotten under our skin.  But that’s okay.  In a lot of cases, they’ll turn their attentions elsewhere.  We stay cool.

~

Be encouraged.  It’s only the empathic person who can truly grow in resilience, for those who are disconnected from human vulnerability have little capacity to grow in what’s essentially a human potentiality.

They may pretend they’re resilient all they like, but unless they’re capably vulnerable—I mean, they’re comfortable being vulnerable—that skill set is beyond them. 

So I hope you can see there’s a great advantage in being a sensitive, empathic type—you’ve got a lot more potential for growth, because you FEEL your adversity, you neither deny it nor despise it.

Don’t stress if they don’t understand.  We can’t convince them.  It’s like this:

“Convince a man against his will, 
He’s of the same opinion still.”
— Mary Wollstonecraft (1792)

We cannot convince people and it’s madness to try.  It’s wise to stay within what we ourselves can control.  No matter what we do we’ll never understand the worldview of those who don’t care to understand.

“What just happened, and what do I do now?!”

There are times in all our lives when something happens, or someone does something that leaves us so astonished that we cannot reconcile it and we just don’t know what to do.

When it’s a life situation like loss, and there’s nobody to blame, I’m not sure if that’s easier or harder than when it’s somebody who’s infracted us or someone we care about.

We’re certainly understood and forgiven for reeling in situations that leave us bereft for an answer to reconcile it.  What DO we do?  One thing we can do is reach out to a wise advisor or two.  That in itself is an action of faith, to surrender sensitive situations to a trusted mentor.  Yet, having sought guidance we still have to decide what to do.

It’s a travesty really when people do things that shock us, but just as much it’s a travesty when life rocks us.

The first thing we must realise is it’s okay to be shocked, and it’s okay to be rocked.  It’s happened, it’s occurred, and so to feel numb or angry or hurt or dazed and overwhelmed is understandable.

Better than to give way to emotional responses, however, is just simply to record that it’s understandable to be beyond a good and worthy response in the moment.

As we reconcile what’s happened in the hours and days after, we toss and turn back and forth in what to actually do in response.  It’s good not to pressure ourselves into a decision, even though to come to a decision may be an irresistible urge.

It’s understandable if we find ourselves betwixt and between, not knowing just how to respond, finding that we’re in an avoid-avoid situation where none of the options open to us are attractive.

Holding this tension takes a lot of courage, mostly because we find we don’t have an out.

Being stuck in indecision, however, is innately stressful.  Peace comes when we’re out of the valley of decision, yet the decision needs to be a wise one, and others who are wise can help us as they affirm and support us throughout.  So don’t hurry it, but don’t get into analysis paralysis either.  Taking a day or two longer to decide is often very wise.

Finding hope in an avalanche of discouragement

There have been times in my life when I’ve sunk without warning into quicksand despair.  As I’ve looked back, I’ve been bearing a huge load, and when my soul knees have buckled, I’ve found myself trounced by the immensity of my world’s heartache.

I don’t bear my counsellees’ struggles typically, other than carrying them with me to God in prayer.  But my own struggles and the struggles of my loved ones weigh me down quicker than I realise.

When I’m there, when I’m waist deep in the miry clay, when all those burdens smother me, I do feel like there’s absolutely no hope.  It could have been the day earlier I was gallantly carrying the load well, balancing it over tricky terrain, negotiating undulations with smiling aplomb.

And suddenly it’s conflict, it’s being misunderstood, it’s a loved one about to give up, it’s the burden of not having enough time to properly do the tasks I need to do, then it’s the weather, the traffic, the littlest bump in the road, tiredness, hunger, noise and other sensual overload, and just a myriad of overwhelm.

How do we find hope in these situations, especially when there’s the triggering of previous trauma to deal with? — things we’re still on the journey trying to handle.

Well, it’s because we’ve been there, and it’s because we’ve gotten through this before — dozens, if not hundreds of times.

Indeed, we still have a perfect record of surviving the temptations to give it all away, not that we’ve always responded perfectly, but then perfection isn’t required.

Good enough is good enough.

The beauty of one day giving in, is the next day has its own way.  Succeeding days run to their own rule and they’ll not be dictated to by the previous day.  “There may be tears of an evening, but there is the possibility of joy in the morning,” (Psalm 30:5) and I don’t know about you, but I’ve experienced this fact hundreds of times now.  I just know now that hope is ever on the horizon.

Just as we carried that load so competently just a short time ago, there will be again that confidence that is now eroded to dust.

As we smile, even through gritted teeth, and imagine just how colossal the burden feels, we think of that distant confidence — it seems so far off.  But truthfully, it wasn’t long ago it was ours and it won’t be too long before it returns.  Claim this by faith.

Be encouraged by the fact that you’re not alone in feeling alone.  In feeling like life’s so unfair.  In enduring the anxiety that ‘it probably won’t happen’ but being controlled by the fact that might just might.  In this, you’re so very human and utterly normal.

In struggling for the fight to go on, cling to whatever hope there is.  Even as despair fills every nuance of mind, and as your heart panics for the hope that seems to have abandoned you, have peace in facts — hope will return as quickly as it left.

You’ll get through this, just like you got through the last time, but don’t be afraid to rest up and be gentle with yourself.  The last thing we need when life’s tough is self-condemnation.

What if my partner refuses to take their responsibility?

For the very common dynamic of one person in the relationship living with less responsibility than they ought to, and the other person taking on too much, what is it that the responsible person can do?  Is there ANY way they can lead their partner to a greater degree of sharing the responsibilities within the relationship?

That’s just it, of course.  The relationship is something that TWO people own.  Most relationships’ biggest sticking point is one taking too much of the burden or the other taking too little.

Where both see their relationship as a bridge to be crossed, and both actually cross the bridge situations (conflict situations) of their relationship, both feel empowered, and hope, peace, and joy tend to abide.

Here are some thoughts on how to positively influence a partner:

THE POWER OF YOUR EXAMPLE

If we don’t exemplify the attitudes and behaviours we’re seeking from our partner, we have no right to expect that they should change.

Now, this is where it gets tricky, because often one partner wants certain behaviours in their partner, while the other partner wants different behaviours in their partner.  In other words, each partner is behaving responsibly in parts of the relationship, but neither is doing a complete job.  It’s no good saying you’re the adult when you’re only partly doing it.  It becomes a he-said-she-said conundrum and nobody wins.

But there are also many examples of partners doing everything responsibly where the other partner behaves more like a spoilt child.

SEEK COUNSELLING

One of the best interventions (says this counsellor) for relationship problems is counselling.  This comes from a man who once refused relationship counselling and then experienced the consequences.

The good thing about counselling interventions is that when they’re kind, bold, and skilful enough, it’s difficult for the one avoiding responsibility to continue to avoid it.  As a therapist, I’m keen to pick up on the dynamics of responsibility avoidance and hold the person/s to short account.  If it’s respectfully though firmly dealt with, there is good potential for transformation.

ACCEPTANCE OF THE NEED FOR HEART CHANGE

This is the most important thing to bear in mind.  Time and again I’ve seen the contrasts between those who change and those who don’t.

Those who change, change because their heart is changed, and because they’re convinced they need to change and therefore want to change.  Those who don’t change usually don’t want to change, don’t see the need of it, and therefore the root of the problem is a heart that remains unchanged.

“The heart of the human problem,” said Canon J. John, “is the problem of the human heart.”  It’s so true.  If a heart is changed, it didn’t change itself.  From a faith perspective, you can see God centrally involved.  From a secular viewpoint, the person themselves sees that change is more attractive and less painful than staying as they are.

THE TALE OF TWO HEARTS

Life’s like this.  

There are some that live as if everyone serves them, and they end up living miserable lives, just as much as they cause misery for those around them.  Then, there are those whose very existence is to serve, to be kind, to delight others—not out of ‘people pleasing’ mind you; these people are a picture of joy, because in living such responsible lives, they transcend what they could selfishly take for an ode of giving.  They do it because they can.

The former is in bondage, and the latter are the free.

It’s only the free person who can give themselves away in service to humanity, and at the very least those humans in their life.

Be the latter.

~

For those who want/need to see their partner change, there’s no substitute for a great example of fully responsible behaviour, the shared vulnerability manifest in good counselling, and the acceptance that heart change is ‘an inside job’ and the only way to sustain change.

“I keep apologising and then regretting it”

This is a very common dynamic.  One person in the relationship living with less responsibility, the other taking on too much.  Usually, though not always, at least in heterosexual relationships, it’s men who are the former and women who are the latter.

~

Imagine the scenario that someone bumps into your car and damages it.  You’re really upset.  That car is your pride and joy... or perhaps it’s just your A-to-B car... the thing is you rely on it, and you’re going to be significantly inconvenienced.

For your damaged car, your expectation—and their responsibility—is that they’ll pay for the repairs.  They may even apologise.  Imagine, though, if they don’t do all of what they say they’ll do or worse they completely abscond or ignore you, taking no responsibility.

~

It’s similar when you’re in a relationship.  The fuel of relationships is parties to relationships taking their responsibility.  Where one person refuses to take their share of responsibility, the other person is forced to make a choice—do they compensate or let it be?  Neither choice is optimal.

Sadly, too many people in those situations end up being 150 percent adult because the other person is only 50 percent adult.

~

It’s like your car’s been dented and you must fix it on your own at your own cost when the person who did the damage refuses to do what they should.

~

A problem then surfaces when the person doing all the compensating takes on emotional responsibility as well.

“I just don’t understand why I keep apologising only to regret it later, then I get angry, and when I do that, I’m suddenly the one in the wrong.

It’s a bit like someone bullying you in private and then you retaliate in public, and YOU’RE the one who gets into trouble—YOU’RE the one tagged as the bully!  All the while the real bully sniggers in the corner, loving their little game.

When I work with people who overly compensate in their relationships—in that they take too much responsibility, i.e., their partner’s share of the responsibility—I try to help them realise they have nothing to apologise for when they react emotionally when their partner refuses to do their own work, when they refuse to take their responsibility.

I try to help both understand that the one avoiding responsibility is principally the one responsible for those ‘overreactions’.

Of course, being people who want to cast the blame on others, they will not be happy when I divert the focus from where they want it to go (their partner) and back onto them.

If the relationship is to have any hope, we need to look at the causes of conflict, not the presenting symptoms.  Exasperation over someone not being responsible is a logical reaction to what shouldn’t happen in the first place.

When both partners behave like adults and take responsibility, there is space for hope, peace, and joy in the relationship.

But when one refuses to be an adult, and they avoid their responsibility, the relationship has little hope, peace, and joy.

Partners who are in relationships with people who don’t take responsibility are encouraged to not apologise for what isn’t theirs to own.

How curiosity helps in every corner of life

It can help us in our pain, in our grief, in our conflicts, in dealing with exhaustion, and how we say yes too often.  It can help us understand many things that otherwise perplex us.  It can help us grow in what would otherwise be despairing situations.  It’s simply curiosity.

Curiosity is basically my main tool in the craft of counselling.  It’s really why counselling works so well as a healing agent in the humanities.  Curiosity is an intense interest utterly devoid of fear yet surging with wonder.  Curiosity searches out things that we otherwise get cynical about or give up on.

I want to show you what I mean by curiosity—it’s probably not what you think it is.  And when we try it faithfully, we find it works because it literally changes the way we behave from the moment we try it.  Curiosity changes us through a radically different focus.

First, here’s more about the situations it can help:

1.             GRIEF – lengthening windows of acceptance is the goal of recovering from grief, all the while not despising the aspects of denial, bargaining, anger, and depression.  Because there’s no way to shortcut grief, there’s the ideal invitation to curiosity, to learn about it, to learn how to sit in the lament and be still, to learn what we can learn.  Succeed in curiosity in grief and we transcend the pain and become infinitely deeper persons.

2.             ANXIETY – this is often a conundrum, “Why am I so full of fear, worry, and concern?” Because anxiety is a conundrum, it invites us on a journey of curiosity to understand it.  Like with grief, it’s a journey that takes a significant portion of our lives.  Learning through curiosity isn’t a race, yet it does help.  Just being curious tends to alleviate some anxiety.

3.             CONFLICT – when we end up in conflict with another person, we have an ideal opportunity to learn more about them and more about ourselves—if only we can stay open from feeling upset, and through curiosity we prevent ourselves from getting too upset.  We can learn why we responded the wrong way, just like we can learn why they responded the way they did.  With curiosity we learn compassion for the one we’re in conflict with, and we gain power to understand what we can own.

4.             EXHAUSTION AND BURNOUT – there are always things we can learn about ourselves and our living situations that augur well for the future.  Getting exhausted and burnt out isn’t the end, it’s actually a vital part of learning what doesn’t work from what works.  It’s all part of life experience.  Part of coming back from burnout is learning how we burned out in the first place, so we don’t do it again.

5.             DISTRESS – pressure crushes us at times, yet unless we face these times, we have no way of learning what we need to learn to deal better with the distressing situations.  Although failure never feels good, it is good, because we learn nothing from success.  Best we don’t judge ourselves for getting ‘stressed out’.  Failure is an invigorator of curiosity because it shows us what we find unpalatable and that inspires us to change.

What I mean by curiosity is a new way of thinking that, if it dominates our life, can give us a huge amount of peace, because we become innate learners and wonderers.

Truly, it’s the capacity to learn from anything and everything that is central to resilience.

What curiosity demands, though, is surrender.

We can’t be open and prideful at the same time, or angry, or frustrated, or fearful.  The openness of curiosity is the elixir we need for our pain because openness in the presence of pain is the doorway to brokenness and healing.

How curiosity helps in every corner of life

It can help us in our pain, in our grief, in our conflicts, in dealing with exhaustion, and how we say yes too often.  It can help us understand many things that otherwise perplex us.  It can help us grow in what would otherwise be despairing situations.  It’s simply curiosity.

Curiosity is basically my main tool in the craft of counselling.  It’s really why counselling works so well as a healing agent in the humanities.  Curiosity is an intense interest utterly devoid of fear yet surging with wonder.  Curiosity searches out things that we otherwise get cynical about or give up on.

I want to show you what I mean by curiosity—it’s probably not what you think it is.  And when we try it faithfully, we find it works because it literally changes the way we behave from the moment we try it.  Curiosity changes us through a radically different focus.

First, here’s more about the situations it can help:

1.             GRIEF – lengthening windows of acceptance is the goal of recovering from grief, all the while not despising the aspects of denial, bargaining, anger, and depression.  Because there’s no way to shortcut grief, there’s the ideal invitation to curiosity, to learn about it, to learn how to sit in the lament and be still, to learn what we can learn.  Succeed in curiosity in grief and we transcend the pain and become infinitely deeper persons.

2.             ANXIETY – this is often a conundrum, “Why am I so full of fear, worry, and concern?” Because anxiety is a conundrum, it invites us on a journey of curiosity to understand it.  Like with grief, it’s a journey that takes a significant portion of our lives.  Learning through curiosity isn’t a race, yet it does help.  Just being curious tends to alleviate some anxiety.

3.             CONFLICT – when we end up in conflict with another person, we have an ideal opportunity to learn more about them and more about ourselves—if only we can stay open from feeling upset, and through curiosity we prevent ourselves from getting too upset.  We can learn why we responded the wrong way, just like we can learn why they responded the way they did.  With curiosity we learn compassion for the one we’re in conflict with, and we gain power to understand what we can own.

4.             EXHAUSTION AND BURNOUT – there are always things we can learn about ourselves and our living situations that augur well for the future.  Getting exhausted and burnt out isn’t the end, it’s actually a vital part of learning what doesn’t work from what works.  It’s all part of life experience.  Part of coming back from burnout is learning how we burned out in the first place, so we don’t do it again.

5.             DISTRESS – pressure crushes us at times, yet unless we face these times, we have no way of learning what we need to learn to deal better with the distressing situations.  Although failure never feels good, it is good, because we learn nothing from success.  Best we don’t judge ourselves for getting ‘stressed out’.  Failure is an invigorator of curiosity because it shows us what we find unpalatable and that inspires us to change.

What I mean by curiosity is a new way of thinking that, if it dominates our life, can give us a huge amount of peace, because we become innate learners and wonderers.

Truly, it’s the capacity to learn from anything and everything that is central to resilience.

What curiosity demands, though, is surrender.

We can’t be open and prideful at the same time, or angry, or frustrated, or fearful.  The openness of curiosity is the elixir we need for our pain because openness in the presence of pain is the doorway to brokenness and healing.