Letter 11: The Sacred Purpose of Pain

Why Avoiding Our Deepest Feelings Keeps Us From Our Truest Selves

“Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”
- Helen Keller

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Dear Future Human,

In my last two letters, I discussed what I believe to be the most challenging divide that exists within us. The first letter, The Gap Between Knowing and Being, examined the gap between what we understand intellectually, and what we embody and live. The Love Letter highlighted two forces that live within us, often seeming to pull us in opposite directions. In both of these letters, there is one theme: the need for integration. The integration of conceptual knowledge with our bodies, and the integration of our bodily drives for survival with our consciousness, is the invisible creative force of love.

This compartmentalization is unavoidable, given the design of our evolutionary development. We are still a work in progress, and as more of our consciousness comes online, we will be better able to perceive the gap. But as I mentioned in earlier letters, we cannot afford to wait for the slow process of evolution; we need to find a way to expedite this integration. It is the most crucial work of our time, both individually and collectively. When we operate from a place of internal integration, we show up differently in the world. We respond rather than react. We create rather than merely consume. We connect rather than remain isolated. We embody our values rather than simply espousing them.

The questions that emerge then are: how do we cultivate this integration? How do we bring together this complexity of the human experience into a unified and authentic expression of who we are?

Becoming aware of the gap is only the first step. Now that we have some awareness of the gap, at least on an intellectual level, we need to identify what is preventing us from naturally integrating the different parts of us.

There are two major factors that stand in our way of achieving integration: our predisposition to avoid our pain, and our fear of death. In this letter I will discuss our relationship to pain.

As you may remember from reading my story, I have had to, and still do, contend with a great deal of pain throughout my life. Not just my own, but that of everyone around me. Born without the typical protective mechanisms against pain (denial, projection, distractions) I was forced to be with pain. I had no way of escaping it. Prior to the intervention that prevented my suicide attempt, my pain seemed pointless. I was suffering endlessly; there seemed to be no way out.

It wasn't depression, but rather its opposite. The symptoms of depression include poor concentration, poor appetite, sleep disturbances, and anhedonia.¹ But I didn't experience any of these symptoms. I was, and still am, a live wire, possessing a heightened capacity for experiencing all of life’s pleasures, as much as pain. I simply couldn't adapt to the madness I experienced around me: the cruelty, the indifference, the illusion of separation. What happened to me before I went up to the roof to kill myself felt like a divine intervention. The message came through so clearly: There is purpose! This revelation changed my life forever. This visceral experience brought with it a deep understanding: there is meaning and purpose to my pain. I realized pain is not my enemy; pain is an informant.

That day I also learned that I could transform my suffering into purpose.

Armed with this embodied knowledge, I set out to understand the source of our pain, with the intention of supporting my kin to discover the path to their own purpose in life. This journey has led me to the most challenging and painful life situations one can imagine. I have discussed some of those situations in my previous letter, but those were more crisis and trauma-related.

In this letter, I would like to focus on the everyday painful life experiences that, in some ways, are as tragic as the ones I experienced daily in my work with crisis and trauma. I am referring to the emotional and psychic pain I witnessed in my private life, as well as in my private counseling and corporate coaching practices. It’s in the ordinary, daily conflicts that people experience their self-loathing and their feelings of anger, hurt, and betrayal, often triggered by their spouses, their children, their friends or their meaningless work.

I have felt the quiet, the loud, and the silent pain that courses through the lives of many as they carry their pain, feeling alone and helpless in the face of it all. Having had the privilege to become intimate with thousands of people from all walks of life, I could see and feel the universality of their pain, their dreams, and their feelings of isolation. We are not aware that every person we pass on the street, every family member, and every colleague at work is carrying their own pain.

We have all experienced heartbreaks, disappointments, and feelings of unworthiness. Witnessing how people move through life caught in their own suffering, believing their pain is unique and that no one can understand what they are going through, has itself been painful to me. I remembered how my own sense of isolation only deepened my suffering. But life is full of challenges and hardships. Facing them alone only creates further unnecessary suffering for us.

The sense that “I am all alone” is perhaps the most ubiquitous and tragic aspect of the human condition.

The reality is that the very nature of being alive includes experiencing pain. We are surrounded by physical, emotional, and psychological pain. No matter how much we know that pain is inevitably a part of life, most of us still carry the unconscious belief that we should not be experiencing pain. We expect life to be smooth, free from struggle, as if pain were a mistake rather than a natural response that alerts us that something needs our attention. We are taught to experience pain as a failure or a punishment, when it is, in fact, an integral part of what keeps us alive.

The unconscious expectation that pain is bad and we should not experience it most likely stems from our extreme discomfort around it. Naturally, pain is not pleasant, and in cases of chronic pain, it can be profoundly debilitating. But our resistance to pain blocks us from discovering its cause and often leads us to seek harmful ways to alleviate it. I will go into more detail about this later in the letter.

For now, I would like to pause and ask: What is pain, really? How can we diminish some of the resistance we have around it?

If we reflect on what pain is, we may come to appreciate that it is nothing more than information. It generally guides us to avoid something dangerous (like heat or sharpness) or alerts us to pay close attention to something within (like sadness or fear). It is an alarm system for the body, a critical signal linked to our survival.² Considering that many of our uncomfortable feelings arise from early childhood conditioning, it behooves us to move toward them to examine whether the information they hold is still valid or not. Avoiding or distracting ourselves from our feelings only serves to reinforce and perpetuate the feelings that maintain our suffering. The resistance to pain is the cause of much of our suffering. If we can learn to listen to pain, rather than resist it, then it becomes tolerable.

What we resist, persists.³

This is why paying attention to uncomfortable or painful feelings is as vital as paying attention to physical discomfort and pain. Most of us will seek medical attention when we experience some physical pain or discomfort, particularly when it is severe or lasts a long time. Some may try to ignore it for a time, but ultimately are forced to seek help as the pain persists and as their symptoms worsen due to a lack of care. However, emotional pain is not perceived as a vital signal like physical pain. It is not approached with the need to be explored to uncover its root cause. Most often, when we are experiencing unsettling or strongly painful feelings like anger, sadness, hurt or fear, we perpetuate our disconnection from this pain by numbing it through substances, distractions, or other addictive behaviors such as overwork, excessive exercise, compulsive shopping, or endless online consumption.⁴

People who seek mental health professionals to address their chronic mental health pain are often prescribed medications that can mute the symptoms rather than address them. (To be clear, there are several mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder, clinical major depression, and schizophrenia that require medications to stabilize individuals and provide them with a better quality of life.)

As of 2022, at least 10% of U.S. residents had filled a prescription for anxiety or depression medication.⁵ Among younger populations (ages 12–25), antidepressant prescriptions surged during the pandemic with a 64% increase among adolescents.⁶ While some prescriptions may be necessary, there are growing criticisms of the mental health field often focusing on the suppression of symptoms by prescribing medication rather than exploring deeper causes.⁷

Many of my clients came to me complaining that they sought help with their anxiety and depression, only to be given a prescription and be quickly dismissed. There are other reasons why our mental health field operates this way (not the least of which is profits, but this is not what this letter is about). What I do know is that just as physical pain is our body’s alarm that something is physically wrong or dangerous, emotional pain is our psychic alarm that something is emotionally or socially unhealthy or dangerous. And when we pay attention, in most cases we can heal ourselves if we would just heed their call.⁸

While pain can be extremely uncomfortable, it can also be a path to growth and strength. If we can accept the pain that comes with exercise or lifting weights, as the saying goes, “no pain, no gain,” then we can learn to meet emotional and psychic pain with the same mindset. This is the paradox we need to accept: while we are naturally wired to avoid pain, it can also be the catalyst for transformation.

Pain is a bridge. It calls us to leave behind our familiar and comfortable methods of coping with pain, and cross over to vulnerability and authenticity. As we become more intimate with our pain, we discover its source—our disconnection from ourselves and each other. Pain provides us with the opportunity to not only discover our whole selves, but also to discover how we truly fit into our social and natural environments. It can lead us to complete integration. Implicit in the potential that pain holds for us is also the opportunity to create new stories, new ways of being.

When we shut ourselves off from pain, we also distance ourselves from meaning, purpose, and most importantly, community. The irony is that the story itself is circular: I am alone because I had to erect walls that will protect me from being alone. It is both a prophecy and its own fulfillment. It is a trap.

This is why I decided to invite people into an experiment: Leap Forward. Twelve years ago, I designed a safe container specifically to help people see that they are not alone, to experience firsthand the universality of our insecurities, hurts, and disappointments. The idea was to create a safe environment where people could discover their capacity to be with their pain, to hold and explore it so that they could discover its source. The goal was to support one another in carrying the pain, with the hope that we would come to discover our real selves, and each other, together. I will dedicate a future letter to this initiative.

It is my pain that has brought me to this moment, every step of the way. This pain has driven my research into the underlying causes of our destructive behaviors. My pain has inspired the foundation of Leap Forward, and now the vision for a Global Project to forward the Intentional Evolution of Human Intelligence. My pain, the pain I feel for you, future human, has been a gift.

We do not want to eliminate pain; it is what makes us human and keeps us alive! Our mission is to learn how to hold it. To feel it fully, while also stepping back to witness it. Practicing being with pain—trusting that we can bear it, while simultaneously seeking its source—allows us to experience pain without letting it consume us.

We don’t know what we are capable of until we meet the challenges of life with full presence. We can learn to embrace the paradox that pain can bring us joy. As Rumi said, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” My experience in my personal life and with my clients revealed to me the radiance of our light in our darkest moments, for pain and joy illuminate the full depth of what it means to be alive.

Dear Future Human, I invite you to examine how you relate to pain. And if it is with fear and avoidance, see if you can shift to curiosity and care. Gather people in your life who may be willing to embark on this path together. You may discover that this path can shape you: deepening your connection to yourself and each other, and more fully connecting you to what it means to be fully human. Because through pain, we find strength. Through struggle, we grow. And through love—through the pain that often comes along with real, open, raw love—we find something beyond ourselves.

Maybe, through pain, we will discover the divine.

With raw and endless care,

Ronit

1. National Institute of Mental Health, Depression, 2024.

2. David Hanscom MD, We Have No Protection From Mental Pain, Psychology Today, June 2023.

3. Shoshana Shea PhD, What We Resist Persists, San Diego Psychotherapy, June 2018.

4. Maika Steinborn PhD, How to Stop Numbing and Repressing Feelings and Emotions With Busyness, Alcohol, Drugs, Sugar or Worrying, August 2022.

5. Trinidad Cisneros, PhD, Fills for Mental Health Prescription Drugs Rose During COVID and Remain High, GoodRX, February 2023.

6. Ayana Archie, The Rate of Antidepressants Prescribed to Young People Surged During the Pandemic, National Public Radio, February 2024.

7. The PLOS Medicine Editors, The Paradox of Mental Health: Over-Treatment and Under-Recognition, PLOS Medicine, May 2013.

8. Susanne Babbel, The Body’s Role in Emotional Healing, Psychology Today, May 2025.

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