It’s been said that when it comes to learning early life skills, information is “caught” more than it’s “taught.”
How and where we learned our first lessons generally affect how we cope with difficulties throughout our lives. When it comes to the subject of personal resilience, research reveals that resilience is not inborn, but a skill that’s learned.
As a teenager, I remember coming across an audiotape from a UCLA professor by the name of Leo Buscaglia. He was known on campus as the “Love Professor.” After grieving the suicide of one of his young students, he decided to start a non-credit class called “LOVE 101.” I remember playing that tape over and over, fascinated with the concepts he spoke about. During those early days, Buscaglia’s message focused on love, risk, and our responsibility to find joy and contentment in life. Buscaglia taught me that the essence of life is to know who we are and to take responsibility for our own lives. How we live, why we live, and the manner in which we live comes from within us, not from what happens to us. Interestingly, with that responsibility comes the potential for pain and loss. People who care deeply are more prone to feelings of loss.
Pain is a part of life, and while none of us like it, we don’t need to fear it as much as we do. Fear weakens us; it saps our power over the outcome. Rather than going through life knowing we are perfectly able to handle whatever comes our way, we go through life trying to avoid pain. Over time, this weakens our tolerance to accept the pain that does come our way.
Fear of pain promotes the unreasonable expectation we can and should be free of all pain. If we try to embrace that idea, a part of us will probably be looking back over our shoulders because we know inside that some pain comes to everybody. Therefore, having fear of pain has just created more of it. Instead of living life to the fullest, embracing all its ups and downs, fear is in the driver’s seat. And, it seems the more advances we make as a society to limit pain, the less power we have individually to tolerate it.
Today we are motivated by the idea we must avoid pain at all costs – an idea Buscaglia would happily dismiss. It doesn’t matter if it’s physical, mental, or emotional: we simply refuse to tolerate it in any form in our lives. In fact, we might feel like failures if we have any discomfort in life. The more we try to control it, the more we lose control of ourselves, seeking to numb it out by any means available. Some will abuse drugs, alcohol, or even risky behavior, all in the name of seeking relief from pain. Before the addiction ever overtook the addict, the person was addicted to living pain-free. That overarching addiction is more controlling than whatever was used to escape pain.
While none of us should actively seek to experience pain, it is, nevertheless, a part of life. To the extent that we try to resist it, we are weakened, not strengthened.
Muscles atrophy from neglect and grow with regular use. When we take responsibility for our lives and find resilience in the face of loss, we operate from a space of strength, not fear. If we want to experience more resiliency in life, we need to be willing to embrace, experience, and release pain, rather than doing everything in our power to avoid it.
From Buscaglia, we learn that anything learned can be unlearned and relearned. We can unlearn some false premises and learn new ones. We can re-frame experiences. Through loss and exercising our resiliency, we can find the value and true meaning of life.
This video (embedded below) was taped back in the 1970’s and is classic Buscaglia at his finest. Though the video is old, his message is more fitting today than ever before. As we run around trying to follow the rules and avoid pain, we can actually forget who we really are and what is essential about us.
I challenge you to invest an hour and half to go back and re-discover that the essentials in life are invisible to the eye. When you do, you can find yourself again.
-Joel Walton