“Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson.” -Alan Cohen
There have been times when I’ve hurt tremendously and then felt a strong need to punish myself for my part in causing that pain. Usually it’s when I’ve made a mistake, and I feel ashamed, like I should have known and done better.
This is kind of ironic when you think about it—clearly I wanted to know and do better to avoid hurting, and yet instead of letting it go, I’ve continued to make myself feel bad.
When I was younger, someone once told me the more we hurt, the more we learn. While I agree that pain can be one of our greatest teachers, I’d like to challenge the presumption that there’s a direct correlation between learning and pain.
I think a better belief about pain is that each time we hurt, we learn a little about hurting less. I’m not suggesting there will ever be a time when we stop experiencing pain. We’re human, and we will always feel the full range of emotions—which is a good thing, since there would be no light without a little dark.
But every time we deal with something painful, we have an opportunity to learn how to decrease our suffering.
With each difficult experience we can learn how to more effectively let go, forgive ourselves, and move on.
With each challenge, we can learn how to think about things a little more positively and respond a little more proactively.
With each struggle, we can learn to attach to our feelings less so that they do not define or control us.
We can live our lives feeling frustrated with ourselves for having room for improvement, or we can accept that life is constant growth and give ourselves as much room as possible for joy.
Photo by Esme_Vos
About Lori Deschene
Lori Deschene is the founder of Tiny Buddha. She started the site after struggling with depression, bulimia, c-PTSD, and toxic shame so she could recycle her former pain into something useful and inspire others to do the same. You can find her books, including Tiny Buddha’s Gratitude Journal and Tiny Buddha’s Worry Journal, here and learn more about her eCourse, Recreate Your Life Story, if you’re ready to transform your life and become the person you want to be.
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Though I run this site, it is not mine. It's ours. It's not about me. It's about us. Your stories and your wisdom are just as meaningful as mine. 
This is a good piece.
So true. And makes me realise I need to give myself a break every now and again!
Hi Lori,
I love the quote in the beginning of this post. I have been guilty of postponing my joy until “someday.” Well, as I have learned, someday never comes. 🙂
So true, We tend to get upset with ourselves when we make a decision that we knew better than to make. I am not a big fan of pain either, but we can learn to not “pain ourselves” as much when something happens that we don’t like.
Thank you for uplifting our spirit as always 🙂
Thanks Lori. This topic is something which I often revisit. The other day I was telling my friend that if we learn life lessons often does it make us less smarter? But I have realised more lessons learnt= less suffering!
Joy is indeed part of the lesson!
Those first two paragraphs were me to the ‘T’. Hope I can grow by letting go more often. Thanks
You’re most welcome Cris. I think letting go really is one of the most important keys to happiness, and also one of the most challenging things. It’s something I’m always working at!
That’s an interesting question you posed! This particular quote really made me think–and I found it very comforting.
You are most welcome. =)
Thanks Ed!
I love this quote too. I never saw it before until the other day–and I thought I’d seen pretty much every inspiring/thought-provoking quote about pain and joy!
How ironic that I should be reading this article after what has just happened. let me explain. My sister is a fashionista and she is being interveiwed by some blogger that I do not rate at all and actually can’t stand, anyway she tells me about the interview and I immediately burn inside beacuse I’m thinking to myself, ‘but you know I don’t like her’ and asking myself if she’s doing it to hurt me, and I’m like ‘good for you have fun’, with a very sulky and irritated face. Still a wee bit wound up I decide to calm down by loggin into TinyBudda (my fav palce to be) and your article actually helped me let go of the irritation and realise that just beacuase I don’t like the blogger I don’t have to be nasty to my sister just beacuase she does. Ohhhh its so hard, I need to start letting go of the pain that I actually impose on myself…oh hum, I’m sure I will get it right soon enough. Thanks Lori x
I know that feeling all too well–needing to let go of the pain you impose on yourself. In retrospect, I realize that I caused most of my pain. “Let go” has definitely become a mantra! I’m glad this helped. =)
Great message and so applicable. We as American tend to push on and push through instead of feeling what we need to feel to grow.