Is there really a greater purpose behind your worst moments?
Sensitivity has its challenges. We are sensitive types often perceived as different and misunderstood. They see us as “weak” or “too” sensitive and expect us to fall in line and be like everyone else. When we can’t, we feel ashamed and weary of trying to get others to understand our point of view. We may even begin to question who we are—and hide our sensitivity instead of being proud of it.
Personally, I already saw that I was “different” when I started school. I was happy in class because I could learn and think about new things. Outside of literature classes, I had fun and enjoyed being on stage, provided I had enough time to prepare. But when it came time to interact with others or go outside to play, my sensitive side showed. While my friends were dirty and sweaty playing basketball, I was sitting under a big Peepal tree, thinking about the words in my pocket-sized dictionary and smiling. While they hung out in groups and gossiped, I chose to deal with people one-on-one or to write poems about injustice and inequality alone. When I was forced to have a picnic with my mates, I couldn’t wait to go. I didn’t eat the cake and chocolate because it was “too gooey” and the pizza and hamburger because, well, I just haven’t tried cheese.
Eventually people started saying things like “why are you so serious?” and “why do you hate fun?” and “you’re such a fool!” Their words made me think that my uniqueness—and my sensitivity—was a problem to be ashamed of. I began to dislike myself. I became self-critical and thought, “Why can’t I be like everyone else?” But I couldn’t find an answer to my question for years. So I decided to hide the parts of me that were different.
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Is there a greater purpose to suffering?
When I was growing up, I learned that a highly sensitive person (HSP)and I started to notice some interesting patterns. My love of deep thinking may be unusual, but it meant I could engage with my thoughts and develop my creative ideas. Mine is the same comfort with isolation it meant I could thrive as an artist working on my own time. And being enchanted by words meant that I could find joy in the work I was creating. It seemed to me that, as a highly sensitive person, I was the right shape and model to be a writer.
I also began to think that feeling misunderstood and unaccepted as an HSP means I can empathize with others who are marginalized and marginalized in their own communities. Writing about hurt and healing with a bank of lived experiences to draw from has meant that my work can be much more impactful.
(Wondering if you are an HSP? Take the test or read about it signs that you are a very sensitive person.)
Thinking like this a deeper purpose behind my sensitivity – and why I felt rejected – helped ease my dissatisfaction with myself. It even helped me to be happy with who I am and what I have experienced. By making sense of my situation, it eased the anxiety of being different from the majority. And he helped me even more than that embrace myself as an HSP.
The science behind creating meaning
Tendon Man’s search for meaningPsychiatrist Viktor Frankl explained that finding the purpose of pain can alleviate suffering. Frankl spoke from experience, having been imprisoned and tortured in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust. He observed that some people in the camp gave up on life, while others pushed through the struggles. According to Frankl, it was given up by those who came to the conclusion that life or their suffering had no meaning or purpose. While those who found the answer to the question pushed through Why? Frankl continues: “If life has any meaning at all, then suffering must.”
To illustrate his point, Frankl writes of a day when he suffered excruciating pain from frostbite while taking a cold, arduous walk to a work site. He felt frustrated and disgusted with what his and his companions’ existence had become. But then he decided to search for meaning. “Suddenly, I saw myself standing on the platform of a well-lit, warm and pleasant lecture hall… I gave a lecture on the psychology of the concentration camp! Everything that oppressed me at that moment was seen and described objectively, from the distant point of view of science. With this method, I somehow managed to rise above the situation, the sufferings of the moment, and I observed them as if they were the past.” Frankl saw a purpose for his suffering in the concentration camp. He began to think of his time there as fodder for scientific research. He survived the Holocaust, was released from the camp, and then founded a psychotherapy school logotherapy which helps people find meaning, including the meaning of suffering. Elsewhere in the book, Frankl says, “somehow suffering ceases to be suffering the moment it finds meaning.”
The latest research also confirms that giving meaning to our lives and experiences, including our suffering, improves our quality of life. A 2020 study more than a thousand people had to think and write about a time when he suffered. They were also asked to write about whether they felt their suffering had meaning and to rate their satisfaction with life. The results showed that people who felt that their suffering had a purpose were generally more satisfied with their lives.
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What is the “purpose” of suffering?
People often look for an answer that objectively and categorically explains why we as humans suffer. However, there may not be a single absolute cause. Instead, I think of suffering as abstract art: meaning is found in the mind of the beholder. I often look at a piece of art and find that it doesn’t make any sense. But then I make myself think about his message and always come up with possible ways to interpret it. Sometimes the meaning I attribute to the play brings me to tears. It helps with our struggles find a meaning that supports you and in that moment it makes sense to you.
For example, the explanation I gave earlier as to why I was born a sensitive person – this my sensitivity helps me be a writer – this is only one possible reason. And that’s hardly objective. Still, it’s an explanation that I liked, resonated with, and accepted for myself. This is an explanation that made my experience worth it. Because it works and encourages me, I decided to embrace it as the goal of my experience. In this way, meaning-making is our individual freedom and responsibility.
Because there is no universal cause for suffering, people will come up with their own responses—indeed, different conclusions to the same experience. In fact, if one examines the same event from different points in time, one can draw completely opposite conclusions from the conclusions drawn earlier. Frankl writes: “The meaning of life differs from person to person and from moment to moment. It is impossible to define the meaning of life in general terms.” This also applies to the meaning of suffering. But it is very possible—and empowering—to decide what meaning we give to our suffering in the moment.
Frankl’s own purpose in suffering—that he would later lecture on the psychology of concentration camps—may not have had the same comforting effect on another person in the camp. Frankl set himself this goal, and it only made sense to Frankl, but it was all that was needed.
How to make sense of yourself – and heal your own suffering
Most of us will never experience what Frankl and other Holocaust survivors experienced. But everyone faces suffering in one form or anotherand as sensitive people, we can feel our own and others’ suffering even more acutely than others. Perhaps even the fact that you are sensitive has brought you suffering. Maybe it just led to misunderstanding, exclusion or hurt. Maybe your empathy was taken for granted and abused. And, as with so many HSPs, perhaps the struggle with the world was so intense that he began to lose hope.
If so, providing a report may help.
I urge you, if you haven’t already, to make sense of your own HSP identity and experiences. Think a positive reason why being an HSP serves you even if it is subjective and only makes sense to you.
If you do, perhaps you will find yourself standing in a warm and pleasant place, doing what brings joy to you, the world, or the people you love. And if so—if you can envision and realize that goal—maybe, like Frankl, you will make it happen.
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