Pain vs. Suffering - Thanksgiving Edition

Pain is something in life that happens to us that we don't have control over. For example, someone backing into you in the grocery store parking lot. Or losing your keys. Or tripping and falling in front of 100 people.

Suffering are the thoughts we have ABOUT the pain that make the pain last much, much longer than the actual event.

Since Thanksgiving is upon us, let's prepare ourselves to handle pain with minimal suffering. The first step is knowing that you are creating your own suffering. That's good news, because you can stop it, too.

🦃Pain: My sister is 1 hour late for Thanksgiving dinner.

Suffering: She's always late. She doesn't care about our family. She never does her part. I can't even enjoy her company.

🦃Pain: My kids didn't put mashed potatoes on their plates and my mom said "Your kids don't like my special recipe".

Suffering: I can't believe they don't like mashed potatoes. It's so embarrassing. My mom will be mad at me for weeks. They ruined my Thanksgiving.

🦃Pain: I invited immediate family only for Thanksgiving and one of my cousins called to ask about it.

Suffering: My cousins are all offended. I should have included everyone. I feel so bad.

The "suffering" examples above ARE JUST THOUGHTS. Thoughts are just stories that our brain makes up. They may or may not be true. Thinking those thoughts doesn't help anything. It makes the pain worse, not better.

So here's what to do. Identify the "pain". Make sure it's factual ("My kids don't like mashed potatoes" might not be true, but "my kids didn't put potatoes on their plate" is because I can see it with my own eyes.)

Repeat the pain statement. Note that there are no emotions in a statement like "my sister was one hour late". And then just stop. Don't make it mean anything more than that.

Happy Thanksgiving!