We’ve all been there. That sinking feeling after a bad date, the hollowness after a friend moves away, the simmering anger after facing unfair treatment. Pain and suffering are as universal as sunshine and rain—an undeniable part of being human. But where does this emotional discomfort come from? What is its purpose? Why does a compliment feel like a gift to one person and a burden to another? How do we know what is painful and what is not? Is the intensity of pain universal, and do we all respond to the same setbacks with a uniform amount of pain?
Goodness of fit
Goodness of fit refers to the degree of compatibility between an individual’s characteristics, behaviors, and temperament and the demands and expectations of their environment.
Thomas and Chess noticed that children seem to have inherent temperamental traits that interact with environmental factors to influence their development. Their study identified three temperamental categories: easy, difficult, and slow-to-warm-up. Thomas and Chess’s research highlighted that the fit between a child’s temperament and their environment significantly influenced various developmental outcomes, including the perception of pain and suffering.
These terms “easy” and “difficult” aren’t about finding fault or assigning blame. They simply recognize that we all have different ways our brains work, needing different environments to do well. Matches or mismatches have a big role to play in predicting our vulnerabilities and sensitivities.
Priya and Rahul received their report cards. Priya sees 98% as a failure, a missed opportunity for perfection. She’s angry with herself and can barely hold back her tears. Rahul celebrates his 50% as if he won the Nobel Prize.
Priya was raised by a dad who grew up with nothing. Every meal was a scramble, and every chance felt like a fight for survival. For Priya’s dad, success meant escaping that struggle and building a better life. Now, doing well financially and as a parent himself, Priya’s dad unintentionally puts some of that same pressure on his child. Every grade below an A is met with disappointment, reflecting his own fear of failure. It’s not meant to be mean; it’s just what he knows. “You don’t know how good you have it,” he says. Does she? She cannot really
This isn’t a malicious act; rather, it is a product of his own narratives about how one should lead life. He never had the luxury to sit down and think about what they wanted to experience in life; it was all about hustle and hard work. Here, we see how feelings of struggle and inadequacy can be passed down through generations. Priya’s dad, despite achieving a better life, carries the weight of his past struggles. This, in turn, shapes how he parents Priya, inadvertently transferring his fears, insecurities, and anxieties onto Priya. Poor kid!
On the other hand, consider Rahul, who grew up in a supportive household where effort mattered more than achievement. He sees mistakes as stepping stones, not failures. This shapes how he views a bad grade—a chance to learn and improve, not a reflection of his worth. Rahul’s mom, although from a similar background of hardship as Priya’s dad, was able to break free from her own limiting beliefs. With the security of her own success, she consciously chose to provide Rahul with an experience she never had. She focused on nurturing his talents, celebrating his individuality, and encouraging him to grow. Now will this make Rahul a spoilt brat? Maybe ! But that’s his journey.
However, Rahul’s sunshine has a hidden cloud. As his classmates begin their growth spurts, towering over him with seemingly effortless ease, a knot of anxiety tightens in his chest. He becomes acutely aware of his sudden lack of height. He starts withdrawing from group activities, especially those involving standing next to his peers. The playful teasing about his height, though seemingly innocent, feels like a spotlight on his insecurity. He worries about judgment and avoids situations that might expose his inadequacies.
Sarah is a young woman struggling with chronic feelings of emptiness and isolation. Sarah’s parents, though seemingly functional, were emotionally distant. Her achievements were met with indifference, and her cries for attention were ignored. This emotional neglect left her feeling unseen, unheard, and fundamentally unloved. The physical bruises from a rare outburst may have healed, but the emotional wounds festered, leaving her with a deep sense of insecurity and a constant yearning for connection. Sarah’s internal critic whispers a different kind of pain: “I’m not worthy,” “I’m invisible,” and “No one will ever truly love me.”
These stories show us how our experiences shape how we perceive pain and the world around us. Experiences like bullying, discrimination, and societal pressures can leave deep scars that influence how we see ourselves. A slur from a stranger can make someone feel unsafe, while the constant barrage of unrealistic beauty standards on social media can make another feel inadequate.
The purpose of pain
When we experience hurt, rejection, or failure, especially during our formative years, these experiences can shape our brain’s understanding of the world. Our brain, in an attempt to protect us, tries to learn something from the experience. However, these learnings can sometimes be oversimplified or even misinterpreted. These can then solidify into a critical inner voice that whispers doubts, anxieties, and fears and becomes a filter through which we interpret future experiences.
Imagine this internal critic meticulously crafting a web of beliefs based on past experiences. Each thread in this web represents a story we tell ourselves: “I’m not good enough,” “I don’t deserve happiness,” or “Failure is a sign of weakness.” These narratives become so ingrained that they start to define our sense of self.
Priya, for instance, internalized her father’s anxieties about success, weaving them into her own narrative of inadequacy. This narrative became the template through which she interpreted her 98% score, triggering feelings of shame instead of pride. Here, the brain, influenced by past experiences with her father’s disappointment, assigns a much higher value to achieving perfection than to the actual accomplishment. This skewed perception leads to intense emotional pain.
For Sarah, the web is spun from a different kind of pain. The emotional neglect she experienced as a child manifests in threads of self-doubt: “I’m invisible,” “No one will ever truly love me,” and “I don’t matter.” These narratives fuel her internal critic, whispering a constant sense of emptiness and isolation. Her brain, shaped by a lack of connection in her childhood, might be hyper-sensitive to any perceived rejection, making the pain of a missed call from her partner feel overwhelming.
Now, the intense, overwhelming pain Priya experiences when she fails an exam may not be something Rahul relates to. “Not a big deal; don’t be so sensitive, he says”. The incredible fear and pain Sarah experiences when her partner misses her call is something that her partner tries to brush off as her “fault.” This difference in perception highlights how our brains calibrate sensitivity to emotional pain based on individual experiences.
Poverty isn’t only about finances and resources.
It’s important to acknowledge that poverty itself exists on a spectrum. While Priya’s dad’s experience exemplifies the harsh realities of financial hardship, a child in poverty might still have a supportive and loving family environment that can mitigate some of the pain. Conversely, a child from a wealthy background might experience a different kind of pain, such as feeling they constantly need to live up to a parent’s achievements. A rich kid who has no love, guidance, or support and a kid who doesn’t live in wealth, but a bunch of loving, caring adults around experience different shades of pain and suffering, each valid and undeniable. It’s impossible to say which one had it better until the entire life’s been lived out. These narratives can be complex and evolve over generations, shaping a person’s self-esteem in unexpected ways. While struggle can leave its mark, it doesn’t dictate your destiny.
From these examples, what I want to put out there is that each and every one of us has a different apparatus to elicit and experience pain. How sensitive we are to pain isn’t something we created; what we want to do about this sensitivity and what we want to teach our brains going forward are still in our realm of influence.
To conclude
The discomfort we experience often stems from narratives woven from our past. These narratives can whisper insidious messages: “You’re a failure,” even when that doesn’t make sense; “No one will ever truly love you,” even when you are surrounded by the most loving people. We cling to these narratives, even when they bring us nothing but pain, because letting go feels terrifying.
Imagine someone working tirelessly for riches and status yet feeling an emptiness that no amount of success can fill. They’re trapped, suffering to maintain the narrative that “failure is unacceptable.” Similarly, someone who struggles with boundaries may endure loneliness and resentment, all to avoid the predicted pain of losing loved ones. They’re caught in the narrative that “being alone is better than being rejected.”
The shift
While suffering isn’t an option, we can choose to suffer to break patterns. Instead of clinging to these narratives, we can suffer the discomfort of questioning them.This is not easy. Stepping away is scary. But this suffering has a purpose—it offers a choice to be free.