Good things from bad times?

Just over a week ago, I visited Newnham College, Cambridge, where I studied as an undergraduate. I was attending a celebration of the life of Valerie Eliot, widow of the poet TS Eliot. Mrs Eliot had been an Honorary Fellow of the College and an important benefactor to the English Department. She did a lot of important scholarly work on the poet and his poems, including the production of an amazing facsimile edition of The Waste Land.

I wasn’t sure why I was taking a Saturday (weekends are often busy work days for me) to drive all the way to Cambridge for that event. I am a big fan of Eliot and wrote a dissertation on him as a student, and I love the facsimile, but I was still surprised to find myself there. I sat in the ornate College Hall, watching impossibly young undergraduates walking in the gardens outside, not quite able to believe that I was once that young, in this very place. I asked silently, ‘why am I here?’

As it turned out, it was exactly where I needed to be for a number of reasons. One of them was this: Before Eliot married Valerie, he had a very difficult marriage to Vivienne, who suffered from what we would now call mental health issues. As a result, his earlier poetry is often quite dark and tortured. One of the speakers explained how Valerie had said that we (meaning all of us, English literature, the poetry-reading world) should be grateful to Vivienne as without the experience of that marriage Eliot would never have written The Waste Land. Imagine that; one of the most important literary works of the 20th Century only existing because of the pain of a difficult marriage!

This got me to thinking. For decades, when something difficult or painful has happened in my life, I have said, ‘well, it’s an opportunity for growth.’ I know, intellectually, that if I respond to a challenge or painful emotions in a healthy way, I will come out of the experience stronger and happier. My life has been full of difficulties and I have grown through most of them! But until just recently, those words had been said more as a platitude, a way of making the pain more bearable, than out of pure gratitude. More like, ‘oh well, at least I’ll get some growth out of this horrible situation!’

Pondering on the Vivienne Eliot/Waste Land relationship, and as a result of some of my reading, I started to consider the fact that people, more and more these days, invest time and money in activities to help them to grow spiritually. There are activities, workshops, courses, all sorts of things. It is possible to pay, and to use some of your annual holiday entitlement, to be put in scary or challenging situations voluntarily, in order to become more authentic, release fears and limiting beliefs, find a more spiritual plane, wake up. And I think this is great; increasing numbers of people are realising there is more to life than a career, mortgage, trappings of success, and deliberately seeking a more conscious way of living. This can only be a good thing, for individuals and for the world.

But some of us don’t have to make those deliberate investments. For some of us, the opportunities to grow are built right into our lives. Any sort of addiction is, as well as being destructive, life-threatening and incredibly painful, an invitation to recover through a spiritual awakening. Those faced with crises such as traumatic relationship breakdowns, illness, family problems or redundancy, for example, all have the choice to respond with faith and using spiritual principals. Of course there is also, always, the choice to respond in a destructive way. But the opportunity to grow always exists in pain and crisis. I know; I have lived through every one of the things on that list, and have responded in a wide variety of ways!

Those of you who read my posts regularly will know that I am a big believer in the power of practising gratitude. I also believe that there is always more that can be done; more gratitude can be found in more situations. So, although I have frequently expressed gratitude for the painful and challenging things that have happened – and in some cases are still happening – in my life, my latest ponderings have resulted in an increased sense of thankfulness. I am thankful for every single bit of pain that has happened up to this moment because this has been my journey to where I am now, and that’s a pretty good place. Not necessarily in material terms, but in a sense far more important: how I feel inside and what it is like being me. And the more I have been able to respond to challenges with faith, acceptance, courage and gratitude, the more I have grown.

Now, I am not, for a moment, saying that I will welcome pain and difficulty in the future. Right now, I would choose to have a problem-free life if I could. But that’s not going to happen; it’s not the nature of life. I can, however, absolutely see the value of having lived through periods of stress, pain and crisis and learned the spiritual lessons they offered. And I am finding it easier and easier to be really grateful for all that has happened and even the Big Problem that continues to develop. Anyone who knows me is free to remind me of this if I am seeming overwhelmed!

So what is this all about? Well, sometimes we can see the value in a painful experience or situation quite quickly. Sometimes it takes a while, and sometimes it’s never really apparent. But I am beginning to suspect that it is always there, if not in the experience itself then in our choice to react with faith, courage, or whatever aspect of our true selves is required. Does this speak to you? If there is pain in your present or your past, could you find something to be grateful for in that pain? What is it? I would love you to share, but if it’s too personal, I am happy if I have prompted you to ponder a little.