The “Gift of Suffering” and “The Icky Middle”
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The “Gift of Suffering”
Whether it is a broken heart or a broken bone, all of our experience of “pain and suffering” is a gift in disguise. The experience of our pain is simply our mind/body trying to tell us something is out of alignment with our natural state of being. Pain is simply pain, like an alarm system going off trying to get our attention. So our job is not to get rid of our pain but rather to go toward it, explore it, and discover what is trying to tell us. Our “suffering” does not really come from the pain we feel. Our “suffering” comes from our fear of and resistance and objection to our pain. The suffering comes from the meaning we add to the experience of our pain. If we hit our thumb with a hammer it hurts. We feel pain. But if we have negative thoughts about ourselves for how we tried and failed to strike the nail, or are angry at someone who told us to use the hammer to hit the nail, we suffer. Our suffering comes when there is some truth that we are afraid to look at, something we are reluctant to face and accept. We fear what telling ourselves the truth may require of us to look in ourselves or something we don’t want to do. Our suffering comes when we have formed an attachment to some behavior - smoking, drinking, drugging, gambling, etc or to some belief, idea, point of view or opinion we have about ourselves or the world around us. It is an attachment we are afraid or unwilling to release. Let’s look at how this plays out in our life.
“The Icky Middle”
The “Icky Middle” is that place (area 2) in life where we know we have a problem and we know what would be well and wise for us to do but we have “not yet suffered enough” to learn what the suffering has been trying to tell us. And we don’t let go. The suffering grows.
Area 1 “Unaware and Unconscious”
Let’s say there is something going on in our life, something that is causing us pain, that is limiting our freedom, our joy, and our effectiveness in life. And let’s say we are not yet aware of it as a “problem”. We don’t even think of it as a problem because we can’t imagine changing it. We have no intention of changing the behavior or the belief system, no matter what it is costing us. It’s just the way our life is. It could be a substance (drugs, alcohol, nicotine, etc), it could be a bad job, an unhealthy or abusive relationship, or any destructive or any limiting habit. It could even be a belief system or cause that we are attached to and refuse to let go of. It could be anything in our life that is out of balance and is limiting our freedom. It could be anything we don’t want to give up or let go of. That attachment is the source of our suffering. “If you can’t say NO to it, it is running your life!”
In area 1 we really don’t see it as a problem. We have no conscious awareness of this behavior as a significant problem in our life. If it is alcohol, for example, and we get drunk and fall down, no problem you just get up and go on with our drinking. Falling down is just part of life, amusing, sometimes a little embarrassing, an unforeseen accident but not a real problem. If we get a DUI or our boss complains about our poor attendance, or our partner is upset with us, it feels like it is their problem, not ours. Life is really not so bad in area 1 because we don’t see it or experience it as a problem. We are stuck in the unconscious illusion that our life is still working. In actual fact we are settling for crumbs when there is a feast available but we do not yet have access to that perspective. In area 1 we are asleep at the wheel and cannot awaken from the dream that we are not even aware we are even dreaming. The world around us can see it but we do not.
Area 2 “The Icky Middler”
In area 2, there is a kind of awakening. Something happens in our life, usually something big. It is at this point on our life journey that we awaken to the problem. We begin to enter into a new level of awareness. We enter into what I have come to call the “Icky Middle”. It’s usually a life moment we will remember forever. Something happens and we really feel the pain and suffering and we see that it is a direct result of our behavior and the choices we have been making, up until now. As we step over into area 2 we even begin to see our own denial that there really is a problem in our life. We have finally awoken from the dream. We begin to see the pain and suffering that our drinking, drugging, or tolerating being abused in our job or in a relationship is causing in our life. Perhaps we realize that we have formed an unhealthy attachment to an idea, belief, or a cause that has now shaken us out of the dream we were not even aware you were dreaming. We are now just awake enough to see the problem and feel bad and are beginning to be aware of the full depth of our pain and suffering in our life. And now the suffering begins to grow. We are now facing the results of perhaps a 2nd or 3rd DUI, or we lose our job, or our partner leaves us. We are now aware of the problem in your life but we cannot even imagine letting go and totally giving up the behavior or belief system that we became attached to. As someone once told me with a grin on his face, “I can resist anything but temptation”.This is true no matter how much suffering it has caused in our life, up until now. We realize we have not been able or unwilling to say “no” to it. I hear things like, “I just know I can have a healthy relationship with alcohol, drugs, gambling, saying no to an abusive job, relationship, etc. “I will do better next time. I won’t allow that bad thing to happen again. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson.” And we have no idea how to quit something we don’t really want to have to quit. And we don’t stop the behavior and we don’t stop the suffering.
This is the definition of the “icky middle”. It is that place in our life where we know what would be well and wise for us to do but we have simply not yet suffered enough to learn what the suffering is trying to tell us. The world does not need us to suffer any more but we are not yet ready to let go of what we want and our suffering begins to grow and build. It may take a very long time and much suffering to let go of holding on to the thing we really don’t want to have to let go of. It might take years. Some people never get free. This is not easy stuff or for the faint of heart.
The Universe is not out to get us. It is wired up in such a way to generally not give us any more suffering than it takes for us to learn exactly what the suffering is trying to tell us and it does so in the most loving, compassionate way it can. But if you ignore the teaching, it gets amped up until you learn the lesson or until you die. The sooner you get the message the less we have to suffer.
Area 3 “The Awakening”
Then something happens. We suddenly feel like we see something more clearly than we have ever seen it before. This is usually a moment of shock. An “Oh my God! What have I done?” moment. It often comes as a burst of clarity. It’s usually another major point of suffering that our behavior causes. It is often a life changing event, an end of a job or a relationship, a significant legal problem or it can simply be a spontaneous “awakening”, a realization that “I just can’t do this any more”, like a deep sense of exhaustion, an “I’m at the very end of my rope” or “I have to let go of something I really did not want to have to let go of”, or “I have to stop lying to myself”. It is a major “wake-up” call. In area 3 we finally stop the behavior that has been the source of our suffering.
Once we move into area 3 everything in our life begins to get better.We begin to feel alive again, healthier even excited about the possibilities. We have thoughts like, “My God, why didn’t I see this sooner?” It is important to remember that once we feel you have finally learned what the suffering was trying to tell us, my experience is that you can rest assured the universe will come back from time to time to test it out just to see if we have actually really learned the lesson the suffering was trying to tell us. There are very few easy lessons in this life because our sweet, innocent little ego wants what it wants.
Be gentle with yourself and remember that we are all right on schedule. There is no premature wisdom in the Universe. You do not get to really know something until you have gone through whatever it takes for you to actually learn it. It’s okay. Try to relax and enjoy the ride.
I offer these thoughts as a loving, compassionate fellow traveler.
Frank Robinson