The Sacred Space of Suffering

The importance of allowing those who suffer to speak freely, without imposing judgments, rules, or guidelines, is still underestimated. One of the biggest problems we face when we decide to share our troubles with someone is the high level of judgment we encounter. Some people mean well and genuinely try to help but inadvertently impose their own subjectivity, analyzing our experiences through their worldview and ignoring that our drama has unique aspects tied to our existence.

Yes, every case is different. Not every instance of betrayal is the same. Not every romantic disappointment is identical. Two people who made the same mistake were not necessarily driven by the same motives. It’s essential to understand each person’s context. While some stories may share similarities, each one is unique and singular.

It is disheartening when we share a painful experience with a friend and they interpret our life through the lens of their own past events. It’s disheartening to talk about our feelings and realize the listener hears our voice and words but lacks the empathy to understand that the story being told is ours, not theirs.

It’s frustrating when we discuss a romantic disappointment and the listener projects onto us their own ex-boyfriend, ex-husband, or ex-lover, starting to see us as that partner who disappointed or hurt them. Once this projection occurs, they judge our every word. Every small gesture is seen as a sign of malice, immaturity, or selfishness because, in reality, the listener is seeing and hearing another person.

For this reason, it’s crucial to distance ourselves from people who cannot listen, who cannot see beyond the boundaries of their own lives. No one is to blame for being this way, and we should be understanding of these people. However, we should also avoid them, especially when we are at our lowest.

When people try to impose their subjectivity on others, they prevent those individuals from finding their own paths and reworking their feelings. Often, people bounce back through strategies that may seem silly to us. But we have no right to tell them this. We have no right to say that someone else’s subjectivity doesn’t work.

Indeed, being able to talk about our sorrows without being interrupted, judged, mocked, or scorned is a great privilege and a valuable opportunity to more effectively piece together a broken heart. However, in a time of fixed formulas and ready-made solutions, it’s hard to find someone willing to engage in this type of listening.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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From The Good Men Project on Medium

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