The Strongest Souls Arise From The Ashes Of Suffering
It is often said that when we are able to dominate suffering and render it harmless, we obtain the clearance to finally be free. There is no doubt that these are wise and beautiful words. In reading them, however, many will surely have asked themselves: “yes, but how do you do it? How can I overcome my fears, my failures, my anxieties and my sufferings? ”.
To keep our emotional states at bay and be able to transform this negative energy that grips our mind, it is essential to know its internal anatomy, to know what causes it and how it works.
Suffering and sadness enter our mind through a series of subtle and powerful mechanisms which, in turn, have a very specific purpose that we will reveal to you below. We hope it will help you.
Suffering and the “sad” mind
Suffering is the inner dialogue we create in our mind. We have certainly had painful experiences, we have suffered for the loss of a loved one, for betrayals, failures and bitter disappointments. Yet one thing is physical pain and another, quite different, is emotional pain.
- The suffering that grips us and that often makes us fall into depression arises exclusively from the inner dialogue we were talking about earlier.
- There are people who, despite having experienced a similar traumatic event, face it in a different way. It all depends on the internal resources and the type of dialogue they establish with their own mind.
The moment we “turn off” the negativity, calm and balance will automatically come. These ideas are easy to understand a priori. However, even after understanding them, it is difficult to interrupt the flow of sad and negative thoughts to put an end to suffering.
Because emotional pain binds to the soul, takes us hostage and suffocates us. And, unfortunately, wishing it to go is not enough to get rid of it.
The “sad” mind works in another way
Man has millions of nerve cells in his brain, which form a wonderful and fascinating interconnected network which, in turn, gives life to what we call “consciousness”.
Neuroscience experts tell us that, of all the emotions we feel, fear is the most powerful. Through structures such as the hippocampus or the amygdala, our brain obtains information from the environment around us to warn us of dangers without necessarily being visible to our eyes.
- The brain is constantly working to ensure our survival. For this he uses negative emotions, such as sadness, fear or suffering, which function as alarm bells: they are the signals that warn us that something is wrong.
- It has been observed through a series of diagnostic investigations that sadness causes alterations in nearly seventy brain regions.
- The amygdala, the hippocampus, the prefrontal cortex or the anterior cingulate cortex would be just some of these affected areas, among which we find a particularly interesting one: the insula lobe.
- The lobe of the insula also has to do with the perception of the body and the sense of taste. This explains, therefore, why, when we feel sad, everything seems to stop, it seems to no longer make sense and not even taste anymore.
- Even if in words we know that it would be enough to turn off the suffering to be free and happy again, the reality is that our brain is unable to react.
This is due to the fact that within us the music is playing with a different tune: our “sad” mind has turned off the volume of the soundtrack of our life.
Overcoming suffering to be stronger
It is worth remembering now a beautiful sentence by Leonard Cohen: “There is a crack in everything. And that’s where the light comes in ”. What has broken or broken cannot and must not prevent us from continuing to move forward.
The tears can be mended, but we must be aware that this change will not allow us to return to the original stage. We will never be the same as before.
- This is not necessarily negative: we can even transform ourselves into much stronger people, since the cracks let in the light of wisdom, of acquired knowledge, of everything we have learned thanks to this change.
- To overcome suffering, we must allow ourselves some time: the mind, as we know, has its own rhythms and functions on other levels. For this reason, it is important to be patient and rely on the support of our loved ones.
- We must try to understand that our brain wants us to “stop”, to concentrate all our energies in finding a solution to the issues that worry us and make us suffer.
Our only purpose is to change something about us or what surrounds us to feel better. Accepting what has happened to us and finding new motivations and new goals are, without a doubt, two important steps that we must strive to take.
Most neurologists say that knowing the mechanisms through which our brains work allows us to better deal with these moments of sadness and pain.
We must never forget that suffering is not an eternal condition, but a momentary and passing phase that we will overcome and from which we will draw many useful lessons to survive the next difficulties and face them better. In other words, suffering prepares us to navigate more confidently in the sometimes so complex ocean of life.
