From Suffering Arise The Strongest Souls

It is often said that once we manage to control suffering and “turn it off”, we get the passport to freedom. Undoubtedly, this is a phrase of great beauty but, when reading them, we cannot help but wonder: “well, and how do you do that? In what way do I turn off my fears, defeats, anxieties and sufferings?

To control our emotional states and transform that negative energy that grips our mind, it will always be very useful to understand “its internal anatomy”.

Suffering and sadness appear in the brain through subtle and powerful mechanisms. These have, in turn, a very specific purpose that we will explain below. We hope they can be of help to you.

Suffering and the “sad” brain

Suffering is the internal dialogue that we create in our mind. We can have painful experiences, suffer losses, failures, betrayals, and bitter disappointments. However, physical pain is one thing and emotional pain is another.

The suffering that grips us and that often causes us to lead to depression has its sole origin in internal dialogue.

There are people who, even living the same traumatic event, face it in different ways. It all depends on those internal resources and the dialogues that they establish in their minds. The moment negativity is “turned off”, calm and balance will come.

These ideas, a priori , are easy to understand. However, even understanding them, it is very difficult to turn off the switch of bitter and negative thoughts to end the suffering. Because emotional pain sticks to the soul, traps us and suffocates us. It is not so easy to free ourselves from it just by wanting it.

The “sad” brain works differently

The human being has millions of nerve cells in the brain that make up a wonderful and fascinating interconnected network that, in turn, builds what we call “consciousness.” Now, as neuroscientists reveal: if there is an emotion that has a high power in the brain, it is fear.

Through structures such as the hippocampus or the amygdala, the brain collects information from the environment to warn us of risks without actually seeing them.

The brain wants us to survive. therefore, negative emotions such as fear, sadness or suffering serve as warning signs “that something is not right”. Seen through diagnostic tests, sadness manages to “upset” nearly 70 different regions of the brain.

• The amygdala, the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex or the anterior cingulate cortex would be several of these structures, in addition to one as specific as it is interesting: the insula.

• The insula is also related to the perception of the body and taste. All of this explains why, when we are sad and experience suffering, everything “seems to stop, everything loses its meaning and even its flavor.”

Despite being told that “turn off your suffering to take the passport of reality”, the brain will not be able to react. We will be incapable because the internal music is in another tune. Because the “sad” brain has shut us off from the noise of life.

Overcome suffering, to be stronger

It is worth remembering here a beautiful phrase by Leonard Cohen: “Everything has a crack, and this is how light enters.” What is broken, what is fragmented, does not have to prevent us from moving forward in our life. The breaks heal, but that change will never allow us to return to our original state. We will not be the same as before.

Now we can be even more powerful. Because the crack lets through:

• The light of wisdom.

• Illuminate the acquired knowledge.
• Give light to the learning assumed in that change.

To overcome suffering you must give yourself time. You already know that the brain works at another rate and at another level. Hence, you must be patient and lean on the people who love you.

We have to understand that the brain wants us to “stay still” to focus all energy on solving what worries us, what hurts us.

The change

Your only purpose is to change something about yourself or what surrounds you to feel better. Accepting what happened and motivating yourself for something new or different are, without a doubt, two essential steps that we must promote.

Neurologists always tell us that understanding the mechanisms by which the brain works would help us to cope much better with these states of sadness or suffering.

It is worth remembering, therefore, that grief is not an eternal dimension, but a specific process that we will go through to obtain a teaching and continue to survive. We must learn to continue adapting to these vital oceans, sometimes so complex.