17. What Is the Difference Between Pain and Suffering? Meeting Reality Without Fighting It
Short Answer
For many years, I thought pain and suffering were the same thing. Through Nonviolent Communication (NVC), I gradually discovered an important distinction: pain is a natural part of life, while suffering often comes from my relationship to that pain.
Suffering and pain have a different taste in the body. Suffering feels bitter and tends to take me away from myself. Pain, on the other hand, feels sweet in the sense that it brings me closer to myself, to my values, and to learning how to care for life.
Today, I experience pain as life serving life. Pain reminds me what I love, what I care about, and what matters most to me. Suffering, on the other hand, often appears when I resist reality, judge, or believe that life should be different from how it is. The more I fight reality, the more I suffer.
One of the biggest shifts in my life has been learning to welcome pain rather than immediately trying to fix, avoid, or escape it. When pain is met with awareness, empathy, and compassion, it often begins to move naturally. The suffering softens, and underneath the pain, I reconnect with what is most precious to me: love, connection, honesty, care, and life itself.
More Personal Answer
One of the deepest distinctions I have discovered in my life is the difference between pain and suffering.
Before, these two words felt almost identical to me. If something painful happened, I experienced pain—and I suffered.
But over time, I began to notice something surprising:
Pain seems unavoidable in human life.
Suffering arises from my relationship to the pain.
This insight changed me profoundly.
Pain Is There to Serve Life
Pain is there to serve life. It is there to protect life, and to guide us toward what is precious in life:
- Pain guides me to protect life:
If I did not feel pain, I would not survive very long on this planet.
If I break my leg, I feel pain that tells me: “Don’t put weight on this leg, so that it can heal.” If my leg does not heal, I would not be able to hunt, gather, or care for myself, my family and my tribe. For most of human history, that could have meant death.
- Pain reminds me what I love and care about:
Pain also reminds me what I love and care about most in life. In this sense, it serves as an orientation toward how to live.
When I lose a loved one—whether through death or because a relationship ends—the pain shows me how central love and human connection are in my life.
Or when I feel lonely, the pain reminds me that belonging and connection with other human beings are essential to my well-being and survival.
To be alive is to sometimes hurt. We lose people they love. Relationships end. Bodies age. People disappoint us. Dreams collapse. Conflict happens. Needs go unmet. Fear appears. Loneliness appears.
When I first encountered ‘personal development’, my goal was: How can I be happy? (In other words: How can I stop feeling pain?)
My goal has changed drastically.
My life is no longer about being happy. It is about being connected to life. Being with what is, and allowing it to guide me as nature’s intelligence speaking through my body—through both pain and joy.
Suffering Begins When I Fight Reality
One thing I repeatedly notice is that suffering appears when my mind fights reality.
For example, if I feel sad, another voice in my head says: “Why are you so sad all the time?” “What’s wrong with you?” “Get over it.”
Now there is not only pain. There is also resistance to the pain. Or, more broadly, resistance to what is. Fight reality.
Another example, imagine that my partner leaves me. My mind says: “She should not give up on us!”
My mind says she should not. Reality says she did.
The moment my mind believes reality should be different from what it is, a different kind of pain enters my experience—one that I call suffering.
“Should” Fights Reality
As Byron Katie says: “suffering is arguing with reality.”
The word “should,” by its very nature, fights reality.
For example, if my partner leaves the dishes in the sink, I think: “They should clean their dishes.”The reality is that they did not clean their dishes. Welcome to reality.
When I fight reality, the result is suffering.
Or if I think, “I should be more disciplined” or “I should be thinner,” suffering immediately appears.
The reality is that I am less disciplined than I would like to be. The moment my mind argues with that reality, suffering arises.
Suffering is the gap between how things are and how I think they should or suppose to be.
Suffering is a bitter, powerless pain. A pain that comes from fighting what is. It feels very different from mourning, which is a self-connected pain.
Mourning versus Suffering
For me, mourning (grief) and suffering are not the same thing.
Suffering fights reality. It is a bitter pain, often filled with powerlessness and resentment.
Mourning, on the other hand, is—as Marshall used to say—a sweet pain, a self-connected pain. It is a pain that connects me to reality, to myself, and to my needs. Painful, yes. But also intimate, alive, and helpful in reconnecting me with my orientation in life.
For example: Let’s say I shouted at my child.
Suffering pain might sound like this:
“I should not have done that. I am so stupid. When will I ever learn? I am just like my father, so aggressive. I am pushing my child away from me, and I am traumatizing him.”
Mourning pain might sound like this:
“Oh, I so regret shouting. I remember the look on his face, scared of me. It really hurts to remember that. (Tears.)
I so want him to feel safe with me. This really hurts… (Tears.)
And I want to share with him why I was upset, in a way he can understand.
I so want to cooperate with him. (Tears.)
I so want to learn to breathe instead of shout, and then explain things to him in a way that helps us connect and cooperate.”
Suffering moves toward self-judgment and blame, while mourning moves toward regret, needs, care, and learning. The pain is still there in both cases, but the direction of the energy is completely different.
And strangely, when pain is fully allowed, something often begins to move naturally. Tears come. Breathing deepens. The body softens. Reality is slowly digested, making space for new creativity and new ways of caring for what matters.
Suffering Comes from Stories
Pain is an immediate reaction in the body.
Suffering is pain that is amplified and redirected through stories.
For example:
Pain: “My partner said no to making love with me.”
Then the stories come: “I am not attractive.” “Nobody will ever love me.” “I will always be alone.” “I’m not fun to be with.”
Suffering.
Or:
Pain: “A business decision I made did not bring the results I was hoping for and caused a financial loss.”
Then the story says: “I’m stupid.” “I’m worthless.” “I’m incapable.”
Suffering.
The Mind Wants to Escape Pain
One thing I increasingly notice: the mind is constantly trying to escape discomfort.
This is deeply human.
When pain appears, the mind often immediately searches for: solutions, distractions, explanations, blame, control, addictions, or certainty.
Sometimes the mind says: “Who caused this?” “How do I fix this?” “How do I make this stop immediately?”
I deeply understand this impulse. Pain feels vulnerable. Uncomfortable. Scary.
But increasingly, I notice: trying to escape pain too quickly often creates more suffering.
The Body Handles Pain Better Than the Mind
One fascinating thing I notice is that when pain is welcomed and fully experienced, it begins to move. Pain moves naturally when I simply breathe, feel it, stop interfering, and allow it to do the job it is already there to do.
For example, when grief comes and I simply cry, breathe, shake, shout, rest, or stay present, the pain flows.
But the mind often interrupts: “This is too much.” “What should I do?” “When will this stop?” “Will it last forever?” “Will I go crazy?”
And then suffering appear on top.
Increasingly, I trust that the body knows how to digest pain much better than the mind does.
Pain Connects Human Beings
Another thing I deeply notice: shared vulnerability often creates intimacy.
When human beings honestly reveal: grief, fear, longing, heartbreak, or tenderness,
something profoundly human becomes visible.
Pain often breaks illusions of separateness. This is one reason empathy can feel so healing.
Not because pain disappears. But because: we are no longer alone with it.
Avoiding Pain Often Creates More Pain
One paradox I repeatedly observe is that the more desperately I try to avoid pain, the more suffering often increases.
For example:
– Avoiding fear may create anxiety.
– Avoiding conflict may create resentment and distance.
– Avoiding anger may create self-disconnection or an uncontrolled explosion with deeper consequences.
– Avoiding grief may create numbness.
Much of modern culture seems built around escaping discomfort. We take pills to numb pain, have unlimited access to entertainment, and live indoors in incredibly safe conditions.
But increasingly, I experience that healing and human connection happen not primarily through escaping pain, but through learning how to meet it compassionately and hold it in the presence of other human beings.
Acceptance Is Not Giving Up
One important thing I want to clarify is that acceptance does not mean passivity.
Accepting pain does not mean liking it, approving of it, or giving up on change.
Acceptance simply means recognizing reality as reality.
For example: “Yes, sadness is here.” “Yes, this relationship has ended.” “Yes, I feel hurt.”
And strangely, once reality is fully acknowledged, energy begins to move.
How It Lives in Me Today
Today, if I had to summarize the difference between pain and suffering in one sentence, I might say:
Pain is part of life and is there to serve life; suffering often comes from resisting, judging, or fighting reality.
This does not mean that suffering disappears completely from my life. I still resist reality often. I still get lost in stories. I still tighten against pain.
But increasingly, I also experience moments when I can simply stay present. Breathing. Allowing. Listening. Hearing. Moving with it.
And in those moments, something surprising tends to happen:
The suffering softens. And the pain begins to move slowly in its own rhythm.
And underneath the pain itself, I reconnect with what matters most to me in life and what I seek in every moment: honesty, love, care, connection, and so much more.