Suffering Stupidly and How to Stop

Or, a short essay on burning out in the world of self-help and personal development

You’re at your limit. You’ve spent thousands of dollars on coaching, online programs, and books. You’ve even travelled to attend the week-long workshops. But you still feel like you haven’t found what you’re looking for. You still feel lost and confused as to how this whole personal development journey is supposed to unfold. Despite having experienced glimmers of relief and improvement, those feelings never seem to last and the problems that brought you here still haunt you. You still lack confidence in the realms of your work and relationships, and there is a profoundly unsettling feeling in your bones as you recognize the familiarity of these feeling states: you’re running around in circles.

To make matters worse, a clear pathway out is not visible to you yet. The sense of overwhelming confusion and frustration at your current state is exacerbated by feelings of hopelessness. “Will things ever change?”, you ask yourself. All of the self-help cliches that you’ve encountered over the years rattle through your mind, but instead of offering hope and solace, their contradictions and ambiguity create more confusion and frustration. Despite all of this, there is still a part of you that is determined to find the way out.

Strangely enough, many of the men that I have met over the years who fit the above description barely even recognize the situation they’re in. Very often, part of the problem is they believe that the unceasing suffering they’re experiencing is a necessary part of the process of self-actualization. “If it doesn’t hurt, you’re not trying hard enough”, a pernicious voice in their head suggests. Another voice, fed by the blatantly misleading marketing narratives of the self-help industry pleads, “But it everyone else gets results, and they make it look effortless and easy! There must be something we’re missing. If only we could get that one piece of information, then everything will start to work.”

Let me make my stance on this perfectly clear: the process of psychological maturation and transformation is not easy. It is not comfortable. It is not quick. And it is very messy. As I reflect on my past self, who struggled mightily with each of these aforementioned feelings and experiences, I feel compelled to express that one of our primary tasks as individuals who desire to become whole, authentic versions of ourselves is simply to suffer well.

What I described at the beginning of this essay - the stuckness, the burnout, the confusion, the frustration - all of it - these are the signs that someone is not suffering not well, but stupidly. Through their naivety and ignorance, they have been fooled into thinking that their current path is the only way. Unfortunately, the prevailing solutions to be found in mainstream mental health and self-help fields are either ineffective or make the problems worse.

So what is the solution? What is the way out? How does one turn their state of suffering from one of stupidity to one of sacred meaning? Fundamentally, one must shed his ignorant belief that suffering is to be avoided. He must recognize that his entire efforts up to this point have been oriented around avoiding or eliminating pain and discomfort in his life. He must recognize that his desire to achieve abundant material wealth or powerful sexual confidence might be a distraction from layers of grief, sadness, and rage arising from psychological and emotional needs that went unmet in childhood. He must recognize that his obsession with healing isn’t actually moving him closer to being healed, and is instead a compensatory psychic reaction to his inability to commune with his purpose and take decisive action towards it.

The work is to feel the layers of pain that are actually present beneath the surface of his consciousness, the pain that he has carried with him since he was born onto the Earth. The one who suffers well understands that his real pain is the sacred messenger that is simultaneously the compass and the map which will help navigate him out of the darkness. In the following post, I will share the reasons why connecting with the right coach, mentor, or therapist is a non-negotiable part of this process. Until then, suffer well my friends.