A Note on Comparative Suffering

Aloha everyone,

I hope your 2024 is off to a fantastic beginning.

We’re halfway through the first month of the year (already), and it’s been so exciting to see y’all’s excitements for what this year has in store for you — even more specifically, for how you are going to make this one of your favorite years yet.

This year has been off to the races for me, personally and professionally, and I’m finally getting caught up with some projects I’ve been wanting to work on for quite a while, this blog post being one of them.

Over the past year, in my coaching sessions with clients, we’ve been spending a lot of time discussing the important topic of comparative suffering. Because this is such a global human experience, I wanted to write about it a bit further here to provide you with some additional support.

Comparative suffering occurs when we compare our experiences of hurt, pain, and trauma to those of others — often, we can either dismiss our own suffering (ex. ‘my trauma isn’t as bad as theirs’) or we can over-emphasize our suffering (ex. ‘they don’t have it as bad as I do’).

Either way can lead to negative impacts on our mental well-being — and the people we’re surrounded by, connected to, and in relationship with can be negatively impacted as well.

With a number of global events occurring at the end of 2023 — incredibly painful, inhumane, and trauma-inducing events — it has become very common (and understandable) for many of us to enter a space of comparative suffering, namely feeling guilt and shame for experiencing troubles of our own. This has often sounded like us questioning ourselves: “How can I complain about my life when there are people across the world who are literally facing immediate death?”

First and foremost, we want to recognize that the process of comparative suffering is a profoundly human thing to do. We are social beings and social creatures; quite literally, we are biologically hard-wired to compare ourselves to others. Evolutionarily-speaking, this is how we make sense of our own experience, and this is how we motivate ourselves and discover how we’d like to connect with others.

Remember, too, that written into our DNA is the need for love, belonging, and connection — comparing ourselves to others is an interesting way our brains have discovered we can meet this need of connection; we just have to be careful and keep this in-check so the comparison doesn’t get out of balance in an unhelpful, unhealthy way.

When we notice that we are comparing our suffering to the suffering of others, we don’t want to crap on ourselves. We don’t want to say, “Oh shit, I shouldn’t be thinking like this” or “I need to stop making this all about me” — neither of these messages will be helpful to us.

Instead, we simply want to recognize that this is happening. We want to say, “Huh, this is interesting. I’m noticing that I’m dismissing my own crappy day because it’s not as bad as other people’s. Let me get curious about what’s going on here.”

Secondly, we want to ask ourselves: “Who benefits when I compare my suffering to others?”

Before I tell you the answer, sit with this question for a moment, and genuinely ask yourself. What do you think?

Okay, ready for the answer?

No one.

Nobody benefits or wins when we compare our suffering to others, not even ourselves.

Let’s think about it:

If I’m comparing my suffering to yours, this doesn’t make me feel any better. This doesn’t take my suffering away, nor does it take your suffering away. Me saying, “Oh, I don’t have it as bad as you do, and I feel so sorry for you” doesn’t provide you with connection. Instead, if we want to get really real, it can kinda act as like a slap-in-the-face because I’m just pointing out to you that, yeah, I think your life sucks right now.

A couple of years ago, I had this conversation with my therapist, and she really helped open my eyes on this perspective. Let me give you a real-life example.

Last year, I got divorced. This was happening at the same time as the conflicts in the Middle East began. There were many times I felt I shouldn’t talk about what divorce or seek emotional help or guidance through it because at least I still had a house, my safety, and my health.

Logically, this makes sense, and we can see my train of thought. And, honestly speaking, our comparative suffering is often very well-intended. As empathic people, we care for others around us, and so we think minimizing our own experience can bring a sense of support to a situation that we have no control over.

The trouble comes into play when remembering that dismissing my own experience doesn’t give me support, and it certainly doesn’t lend any support to other’s experiences. Instead, we’re all left feeling heavy, alone, and isolated.

This is where my therapist’s helpful perspective came into play:

She helped me to see that we can’t make any positive change when we are down. When we’re feeling alone, lonely, isolated, heavy, etc., we can’t give positive energy into changing our community, let alone the world. So, if we are continuing to put ourselves down by dismissing our experiences, we’re preventing ourselves from doing what we can to help others.

So, instead, if we get the support that we need, we’re then able to care for those whom we care about, even people who are suffering themselves.

This sounds like us saying, “Hey, I’m going through a really hard time, and I need support. I care about you (the people we are comparing our suffering to) too, and my heart goes out to you. As I continue to care about you, I’m going to get the care and support I need too so that way I can support you even more.”

This isn’t us putting ourselves above or below the suffering of others — suffering can’t be measured. Any and every type of suffering is important. We can both simultaneously get support for the suffering we experience while also caring about and providing care (as best as we can) to those we want to help support.

For me, this looked like me receiving my own counseling and coaching to navigate the grief of my divorce while praying for and emotionally supporting those in my community who I know have been directly impacted by the conflict in the Middle East.

Our ability to care, love, and empathize for others as humans is infinite.

And we can best care for others when we acknowledge our own suffering alongside the suffering of others, saying,

“Yes, we’re all experiencing difficulty. This life is incredibly difficult. Our challenges look different from one person to the next, but they’re all important, and we’re all deserving of support. I care for you, and I’m here for you, as I care for myself, too.”

I hope this is helpful.

If you have any questions, concerns, or comments or want to dive into this topic further, please let me know. I’m always here for you. I can best be reached by email here.

Take good care, and be well.