Suffering and other acts of growth

With the Covid-19 virus continuing to cause upheaval both among nations and individually, the importance of accepting suffering in our life is gaining renewed attention. This attention is using the new experience of suffering to build on the realisation of people who have come through severe suffering in their life that the experience was formative, spurring growth and maturity. Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung has left us with this conclusion from his studies:

A life of ease has convinced everyone of all the material joys, and has even compelled the spirit to devise and better ways to material welfare, but it has never produced spirit. Probably only suffering, disillusion, and self-denial do that.

Researchers from Bath University in England last year were surprised to find that 88.6% of the participants in their study identified positives arising from the pandemic. "The majority (74%) of respondents were working exclusively from home, and almost half reported a reduction in income. Most of their children (93%) were home taught, and 19.5% of them reported having a family member with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection." 

Despite these burdens, participants reported "improved relationships, a greater appreciation of life, discovering and embracing new possibilities, and positive spiritual change". From this outcome, researchers were able to gain insights into what is categorised as "post-traumatic growth".

Mental health counselor GinaMarie Guarino explains:

Trauma has a lasting impact on a person, but it is a misconception that you cannot recover from or grow from trauma. Post-traumatic growth comes from overcoming challenges that you may experience in reaction to trauma and learning from the recovery process.

Self-denial and personal discipline, though partly forced upon a person by the dificult circumstances of the pandemic, can foster a person's ability to both look beyond inconvenience and more deeply consider the needs of others. Guarino puts it this way:

The removal of distractions helped many people reconnect with family and focus on their life goals and career aspirations.

Paul Stallard, professor of child and adolescent mental health at Bath University, says of his research:

It’s important to share the findings to provide a more balanced story about COVID-19. There are lots of news stories about the negative effects on mental health but people are also identifying some benefits out of this difficult situation.  

"Most of what we learn that has any value arises out of our own personal experiences", according to Stephanie Dowrick, a writer and explorer of Christian and Buddhist spirituality. "And often what we learn from, because they are so tenacious and difficult to escape, are our experiences of suffering". 

What suffering does that books, or conversation, or observing others, do not do is that it "knocks our corners off".

Suffering does that. Through tearing us down, and forcing us to think about what really does matter, it offers an irreplaceable opportunity to see things through the wisdom of the heart as well as of the mind. 

Finally, in her book Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love Dowrick points out that deciding to rise above the suffering that each person's life delivers makes "sublime good sense" whereas not doing so puts a person on a path to "inner bleakness". 

All of this has its echoes in Jesus' words just before his crucifixion: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

It's an intriguing snippet of information that the advice "Be not afraid" occurs a total of precisely 365 times in the Old and New Testaments.