Adversity as a path to True Freedom

I worked in a pub. I love working on weeknights. It is quiet. But if you were in a pub on a Tuesday night, rather than being at home with your family, there is something tacky going on. And they usually have a piece to share with you. The bar turns into a confessional, minus the absolution. Every wound was made bare and every abyss was brought to light. People are willing to become vulnerable when they know you are listening attentively. They are not even expecting you to be the Wise Old Man, to utter a maxim or two, to alleviate their suffering. Or maybe they do not even want you to be that Messiah. Or maybe simply by listening attentively, they are accompanied on the journey of healing – gazing at those wounds, bringing light into the abyss, and even contending and embracing it.

“No pain, no gain” is as true as it gets. Why do we need pain to gain? Why do we need the Crucifixion for the Resurrection? Why do we need to stare at the Serpent, voluntarily, in order to live?

This idea goes back thousands of years. When the Israelites were in their desert-wondering after leaving the tyranny of Pharoh, they were complaining against God who brought them out of slavery and were reminiscing about the captive days when they have a full stomach.

“Why have you brought us up from Egypt to die in the wilderness, where there is no food or water? We are disgusted with this wretched food!” (Numbers 21:5).

But what would happen next when you are self-pity and you lose faith in God? Maybe the pit you created for yourself became deeper.

“So the Lord sent among the people seraph serpents, which bite the people so that many of the Israelites died.” (Numbers 21:6).

Then when the people were half-repenting and asked Moses for reconciliation with God, the reply from the Lord is neither getting rid of the snakes, nor an arbitrary miraculous healing and revival of the dead, but the Lord commanded to “make a seraph and mount it on a pole, and everyone who has been bitten will look at it and recover” (21:8).

“Look it at; bring it on”.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster, and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you”. For a nihilist, there could never be light in the darkness, or rather, they think there is no light at all. But this exodus story gave us a different narrative of life and death. By looking at the abyss, an unexpected ending awaits. There is no point in questioning the origin of an abyss, but it is necessary to contend with it and embrace it. It is necessary to say: “Bring it on”.

One of the oldest psychotherapeutic techniques is called exposure therapy. Voluntary exposure to threats is a way to contend with the challenge. Whenever we are faced with a perceived threat, a part of the brain, the amygdala, would be activated and signal the sympathetic nervous system for a “fight-or-flight” response. However, not every perceived threat is an actual threat. Human is able to re-learn these phobias step by step and learn to contend with them. It could just be an opportunity to grow.

We are faced with two options at the junction of “fight-or-flight” – to approach or to avoid. To avoid the threat is simply reinforcing the “threat hypothesis” signaled by the amygdala. Therefore, your brain becomes more sensitive towards future perceived threats, and your “flight mode” become more prevalent. It diminishes your opportunity to grow through it. The contrary happens when you retrain your parasympathetic nervous system to approach the threat voluntarily. You expose yourself to those “apparent” threat and get accustomed to them. Your brain is slowly de-sensitised to the perceived threats and able to contend with them slowly. You see them as an opportunity to grow and strengthen your skills. Eventually, you not only learn to appraise the threats but also to overcome the “threats”.

Stress is inevitable. We are not meant to overcome the feeling of stress, but to change our mindset and contend with the challenge. The story of looking at the serpent taught us that very lesson. Healing is a process forward not backward.