Leo Tolstoy, in the opening of Anna Karenina, says each family is the same in their joy, and unique in their suffering. Tolstoy understood that suffering arises from an injury to something meaningful inside of us. We agonize when we are estranged from what is most meaningful. Agony is a type of suffering that lies between distress and despair. It is deep enough to be profound yet not so deep as to drown us completely. In agonizing, we can experience our deepest nature, values, and longings. And, in this revelation lies the wisdom of agony.
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The Wisdom in Agony
Tools to help us Flourish even in times of distress
The Wisdom in Agony
Agony is the leading edge of despair, the complete absence of meaning. However, when we accept our agony, it can bring us deeply into ourselves, where we can recognize that the source of our suffering is also at the root of what is most meaningful. Agony arises because it is a part of us and if we fail to apprehend it, we lose a part of ourselves. This pain is not easily tolerated but if we push the agony away, the connection to our depth is severed and we may find ourselves looking into Nietzsche’s abyss. We cannot really push agony away, because agony demands that we surrender to the specific painful feelings in order to connect us to what is meaningful. Connection and then recognition of our pain, transforms the agony as the meaning of the pain emerges.
Only connecting to agony can transform it. In Franz Kafka’s story, The Penal Colony, the prisoner is subjected to a torture that calls for recognition. He is strapped down on his belly and a carving lathe is suspended above him. When the device begins to cut into his back, he feels only pain, then agony, and then senses the approach of despair. However, despair is kept at bay as he brings his awareness to the details of the cutting into his flesh. The lathe is carving a word into his back. Recognizing the word releases him from the agony. Like the lathe in Kafka’s horror story, agony demands we give it attention.
Life’s agonies cannot be avoided, but can be prepared for. We need not wait until the excoriating fire of agony hits us to develop our ability to find meaning in distress. By approaching, rather than avoiding, the challenges, setbacks, and disappointments in life, we can learn to understand the parts of ourselves that struggle for expression. We can see our values and beliefs reflected in how we experience the hardships in life. We can come to understand ourselves through the ways in which we suffer.
Tools to help us Flourish even in times of distress
Thomas Moore’s book, Care of the Soul, is written in the long tradition of embracing parts of ourselves we wish were not there, such as painful memories and feelings. This deep wisdom tradition encourages us to allow the experience of pain. By accepting our pain as part of an unfolding psychic process, we can bring into awareness the deepest levels of our being. Thomas Moore helps us implement this process by showing how we can remain aware of the depth of our being in our daily life. Moore refers to this inner depth as Soul. This cultivation of depth will then be there to sustain us in times of agony.
Carl Jung spent most of his life as a psychiatrist seeking paths for approaching and developing a relationship with his inner demons. In his autobiographical book, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections, he shares his use of myth and dreams to gain an understanding of a deep subconscious world. When we take the time to witness our dreams, creativity, and imagination, we expand our ability to see into the subtle internal world of our psyche. Through this process of careful cultivation, we can begin to see the powerful forces of the collective unconscious, synchronicity manifested in our life.
Joseph Campbell, in A Hero With a Thousand Faces, describes the initial experience of a transformative journey as agonizing. The hero is called to transformation; however, the transformation requires a painful separation from the familiar. Through the exploration of myth and metaphor, we can see our own aging as a call to transformation, the hero’s journey.
Exploring Literature as Wisdom can help us grasp the deepest meanings of life. Not all myths and metaphors are written in the past; contemporary literature is the myth and metaphor of our time. Through stories we gain access to worlds not our own. When we read of others who have suffered, we can see that suffering is a part of the human condition and can lead to the deepening of our connection to our own narrative history. This can help us tolerate our agony in the context of the human condition.
Through contemplation we can develop resilience and the capacity to tolerate agony without falling into despair. Contemplation is a process of spiritual reflection where we focus our attention on the essential equations. Thomas Merton, a twentieth-century contemplative monk, shares his struggle to obtain the deepest levels of contemplation in his biography, The Seven Storey Mountain. The book describes his journey from a twenty-something writer in England to taking the vows of silence of the Cistercian Order and living in that contemplative community for most of his life. Profoundly, Merton allows us to be a part of the routine of the Benedictine Rules of monastic life, an order and sequence that focuses our awareness on every detail of our own daily life.
Viktor Frankl, in Man’s Search for Meaning, shows us that being able to see the meaning in our tribulations and holding onto a purpose can aid us in surviving the most gruesome ordeals. Frankl’s ordeal was surviving the Nazi death camps. Most of us will never face such horror; however, approaching our difficulties with a longing to understand ourselves more deeply, helps shift us away from despair, toward meaning and purpose.
Pema Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart is a gift from her heart to help others endure. He compassionate meditations comfort us as we work towards acceptance of all life offers, including suffering and loss.