Wooowwww...I'm blown away. It's so wonderful to be in the company of such light and consciousness. Thank you all for your posts. Suffering having purpose is the only thing that makes the universe make sense to me. We see it in nature but feel slighted and upset when it happens to us. What if rabbits were to become neurotic worrying that something is always hunting them to eat them? Their suffering, and ours, has a purpose that's bigger than us.

As Sky put it:

As I've said many times I believe it isn't what we go through, it is how we go through it.

How true? In a similar vein, I coined this phrase:

"Nothing happens to me, only through me." Depending on how I handle what I'm going through.

Another helpful phrase I made up that brings perspective and clarity in painful times: "Whatever gives me hell, is my ticket to heaven."

Elysium, yes you understand exactly what I'm saying. I particularly like your way of putting it:

One goes through trauma and is left with pain, confusion, and cognitive dissonance, yet the only way out...to be reborn into a being free from the pain, is to move through the pain.


Yes! there is no way around pain except to move through it. To face it. To seek it out. To ask it to show it's face and not fear or despair. Not to get religious but a certain book instructs, don't be afraid and don't worry. But many others said the same thing before this book was even written. Perhaps the Ancient Ones knew what they were talking about.

Thank you for this Rapunzel:

Our Father in Heaven knows us and what we are made of, and won't give us more than what we can handle. I find it comforting to understand that.

This awareness has certainly brought me comfort in the form of peace beyond understanding. Only when I lose consciousness and forget is my suffering increased.

Lynn, I agree with this:

I think we're here to learn many lessons and we can help others from those lessons learned.

It's so not about us. It's about Service to others. Has anybody ever heard of QTIP -- Quit Taking It Personally!

Billie, I totally am with you on this:

I personally could not go on without a sense of purpose for that which I find it painful to endure. Without a higher meaning, it would be fruitless, and I would see little reason to continue.

At one point I was so through with this world. I wanted nothing to do with. Being molested at five, physically abused by my mother, having social anxiety and depression all my life I saw no point to it all. I thought, If this is what you have for me God, I think I'll just exit stage left, if you know what I mean, LOL. This wanting to disappear started me on a spiritual quest. Then the pieces started to come together one by one.

There is power and purpose in pain. Thanks so much everybody for your beautiful thoughts on this.