Season 8 - Episode 3: Pain & Suffering: Are Either Avoidable?

Life hurts sometimes.

👎🏽 Your case bombs.
👎🏽 Someone says something that cuts deep.
👎🏽 You lose something or someone that mattered.

That’s PAIN.

That’s inevitable.

BUT, then your brain chimes in:

🧠 “This shouldn’t be happening.”
🧠 “I should’ve done it differently.”
🧠 “I’m not good enough.”

That’s NOT pain.

That’s suffering… and it’s OPTIONAL. (even if it doesn’t feel optional.)

This week on the podcast, I’m walking you through one of the most powerful mindset shifts I’ve made in the last decade.

Tune in NOW! 🎧

Love,
Sari 💖

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“Pain is life, your highness, but suffering is optional. It’s something we do in response to pain and that we can learn to stop doing.”
sari de la motte

TRANSCRIPTION

Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

You're listening to Sari swear on the Sari Swears podcast.

Welcome to another episode of Sari Swears. I almost said From Hostage to Hero. I've said that so many times, y'all. So another episode of Sari Swears. If you haven't heard our brand new song in its entirety, go back to last week. We've got the link in the show notes for our brand new song I Don't Stay in my Lane. So I'm hoping you're loving our new song, our new look, our new everything. If so, you can go and give us a review over wherever you listen to your podcasts. I would love you to do that, so please do that.

And today we are talking about pain and suffering. I thought this was so interesting, because this past May, Kevin and I were at Canyon Ranch. You know I love me some Canyon Ranch. It's over there in Tucson, Arizona, and there's something about the desert. The desert is just so spiritual and wise, and I could do without the rattlesnakes and the badger... Not badger, mountain lion warnings, but the javelina? Oh my gosh, adorable. And... Anyway, I love Canyon Ranch, the one in Tucson. That's the one I've always gone to.

And so when I'm there, I get... Because you know I don't get enough coaching in my regular life now. I love coaching. I do all the sessions on different things, and I can't remember exactly what session I was in. I think it was something to do with managing stress. Yes, I have stress as well, even though I teach y'all about mindset, I also have stress. And he was talking, the practitioner was talking, about the difference between pain and suffering. And I thought, "Isn't this interesting?"

Because as trial attorneys, pain and suffering is something, it's a phrase, it's almost like one word the way we use it. Pain-and-suffering. Right? And it's something, obviously, that we talk about in terms of damages. But when you look up pain and suffering, it really is one big thing in terms of trial lawyering and damages. But what I realized, both through this session and in my own journaling, is that in reality they are two very different things. And I think it's really important for you and for me to understand the difference.

So, pain in life is inevitable. I love the quote from Princess Bride, one of the best movies ever made. If you haven't gone and looked up the... Just, I don't know how you would Google it, but something about the little kid parody of Princess Bride. It's amazing. This person asks these two kids what they think the Princess Bride plot is, and they start to narrate it, and then people are acting out what the kids are saying. It's amazing. Do me a favor and look it up. You will not be disappointed. It's amazing.

Anyway, he says, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something." And so pain is inevitable in life, right? People are going to die. You will lose trials. You will feel physical pain. Right? Pain is inevitable. And there's no way to avoid this. That's not to say that we don't attempt to avoid it. We certainly do. We try. We do things like not getting close to people because we're afraid that we'll lose them, or settling cases we should actually take to trial because we're afraid of losing, or using drugs and alcohol to numb emotions. And what I realized in this session is that pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. Yeah, I'm going to say that again. Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

We hear the phrase unnecessary suffering quite a bit, but I want to suggest that all suffering is unnecessary. So let's talk about what I mean. So suffering is self-created. It's something that we do in response to pain. It's like we add an extra layer on top of the pain we're already feeling to make ourselves feel worse. And I think that most of us have done it for so long that we don't recognize that it is something that we can opt out of. So what do I mean? For example, let's say that you do lose a trial. Okay? That's happened to nearly everybody, and it is not a pleasant thing to go through. And as you've probably heard me say before if you listen to the podcast since we began, I've talked about how mindset training and learning how to manage your mind, as much and as important as I think that is, is limited in that we cannot, nor should we attempt to, mindset away actual pain.

Because as The Princess Bride has taught us, pain is life. That is something that we will all experience, and something that we will all have happen in our lives. And so when we have pain from losing a trial, for example, there's nothing that we can or even should do to try to avoid that pain. It is painful to lose. When you put so much work into working with the trial, working with the family, I think that's a lot of why so many of you have pain when you lose trials, because you're so worried about how that family will actually make it without this remedy that the law and the jurors could have provided, and then they chose not to. So that's pain. Okay? That's an example of pain.

Suffering, however, is when you take a painful situation, like losing a trial, and you add on top of it. So that might look like saying things like, "Well, we lost because I'm not a great trial attorney," or, "We lost because I should have gave this case to somebody better," or, "We lost because I really fucked up in this one way." Right? We're adding suffering to the pain. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with looking at your performance, so to speak, and deciding on what you might do differently.

By the way, if you've not listened to my podcast... I should have looked it up before I podcasted. Some things don't change, even though we have a brand new podcast and a brand new look, some things don't change. But I do talk about the misnomer that we tend to learn more from our failure than our success, and that's actually not true. So I have a whole podcast on how we learn more from building on success than grinding ourselves into our failures.

Either way, whether you're looking at things maybe that you did wrong or things you want to correct... I'm not saying that we never do that, but what I am saying is when we add the necessary part of saying that we should have... And should is a great word to be thinking or to be looking out for when you're in suffering. Should is such a great pointer to thinking that is in the suffering lane versus the pain bucket. I went from lane to bucket, but the last podcast was about lanes, so let's go to buckets. So yeah, so definitely when you're saying should you're in the suffering bucket.

So that's what I mean by suffering, is we're adding to the thing that is already painful. Okay? And that I think we can avoid, and the reason that we can avoid it is because that is within our control. Pain is not always in our control. In fact, it's... I wouldn't say rarely, but it's often, if not half and half, out of our control. It's not something that we can avoid. So how do we avoid suffering and how do we learn to bear pain? Those are the two things that I want to talk about today.

So let's first talk about how to avoid suffering, because suffering, I believe, is completely within your control. It's something you add to what's already a painful situation. So the number one way of avoiding suffering, not necessary or unnecessary, because I think it's all unnecessary, is to check your stories. Our brain will make up stories. So at first when I was writing up my notes to this, I thought, "Don't make up stories." And I've said that. You've probably heard me say that in other podcasts. But that's literally impossible.

That is what the brain is, I don't want to say trained to do, but that's the function of the brain. The function of the brain, besides keeping you alive, is to create stories. Why? The brain wants to be as efficient as possible. And so when it can create a story or a narrative about the things that are happening in our lives, it makes itself feel better. Right? It can say, "Oh, here's the explanation for why these things are happening in our life." And in that, it can then prevent further pain. At least that's what it thinks it can do. Right? So it's thinking things like, "Well, if this is what happened this time, it created the pain, next time, I can avoid that." That's why it tells itself stories. It's making connections all the time. If the brain's doing anything, it's making connections.

So I stopped myself, [inaudible 00:10:14] and I said, "Okay, it's not 'Don't make up stories,' because the brain will make up stories. It's 'Check your stories.'" And you've heard me say before that you need to choose a story that serves you. I want you to think the next time something painful happens... Whether that is your paralegal gives in her notice or you lose a trial or your spouse does something hurtful. Right? Something, you're experiencing pain of some kind. I want you to check what story you're making up about it. Oftentimes the story that we're making up is not the truth of the situation. In fact, many times the story that we're telling ourselves is not the truth of the situation. We know about the brain, and this is why we do so much work in terms of the saboteur in the H2H crew.

In terms of the brain, the brain is not going to spend its time, it again wants to be super efficient, making up all of the stories of how things can go well. That is not an efficient use for the brain. The brain, its number one job is to make sure that you stay alive. So of course the brain is always going to make up negative stories, because if it makes up negative stories as I just said, then it can somehow in its thinking prevent negative things from happening and i.e. keep you alive. So the brain is always going to tend toward the negative.

Now, some of us this is more pronounced than in others, and some people are naturally more happy and successful, partly probably due to genetics or otherwise or their environment, but probably partly because they've wired themselves to start to think toward more happy or successful outcomes. But my point is that for most of us, the brain is automatically going to go to a negative story, a negative explanation for why the pain we're currently experiencing is happening, so that it can prevent it from happening in the future. And I would say...

I don't want to give a percent. I was about to say 90% of the time that the story is wrong. That's not always true. But a lot of the time. I mean, they've done research. I don't know how they research this, right? How do they get into people's brains? But basically the prevailing wisdom out there is that for the majority of us, 90% of the things that we think are going to happen never actually happen. So we know that's the truth. So the first thing is to check your stories. Right?

The second thing that you can do to help prevent suffering in your life is to try on new perspectives. So when you're checking your stories, sometimes... For example, maybe something's been happening in your world, and pain is a natural consequence of that, and the story that you're making up, even though you're not a hundred percent sure that it's true, you're pretty sure that it's true. Right? So you're like, "Okay, so I've checked my story, and I do think it's true, or I'm pretty sure that it's true. What do I do now?" Instead of choosing a different story, a story that serves you, you can try on a new perspective.

So I was just talking with my coach the other day, because I love my coach and I love coaching, and I highly, highly recommend that all trial attorneys, if not all people, have a coach, because you need that outside perspective, just like you need... We just did some special programming in the crew. We always have special guests and whatnot in the crew in the summertime. And we brought in one of our members, Tim Whiting, who I adore, to talk to the crew about coaching and how much it has changed his life. And as we were talking about that, we brought up the analogy that it's very much like when you bring a consultant or another trial attorney into your case.

Having that outside perspective on something you're so close to, and I can't think of anything that you're more close to than your own brain, can be so helpful. So the same goes with coaching. So I was talking to my coach and the words that came out of my mouth was, "Everything is falling apart." And she said in her infinite wisdom, "I want to offer you another perspective, which is, maybe everything's falling away." And at that moment I thought, "I like that. I'm going to choose that perspective."

There's so many times that we are feeling or thinking about something and we feel stuck, which is why coaching is so helpful, because it helps us choose a different perspective. So if you think that maybe your story is the right story, can you then try on a different perspective, a different way of viewing what is happening to you, that can give you maybe some insight and allow you to not add to the pain that you're already feeling? What I was going through is painful, but I didn't want to add to that by saying, "Everything's falling apart." If I chose a different perspective of "Everything's falling away," that actually serves me. And that's a little different than checking your story and choosing one that serves you.

Sometimes the stories that we make up, or sometimes we know, "This is why this pain is happening," sometimes we need to choose a different perspective. That's a little different than choosing a different story. And the third thing, and there's lots of ways, but these are the three things because I love my three. What you can do to prevent suffering in your life when a painful thing is happening is release your need for things to be different. There's an Eckhart Tolle quote and I'm going to get it wrong, but the basic gist is this. He says that the experience that you're having right now is exactly the experience you need to have to further your growth, basically. And he says, "And how do I know that that's true? Because it's the experience you're having." Meaning everything is working for us if we allow it to.

Last week I talked about the Mary Cogan memorial courtroom and how her famous quote that I have now memorialized in the courtroom is, "And what did you learn?" And she would always ask me that every time I was going through something difficult. And that really embodies what I'm trying to say here, is that oftentimes we are causing ourselves suffering because we are hoping for a different reality. We don't want to be in the reality that we're in. And so we try to go back and think of all the different things we could have done at trial to have prevented this from happening. That adds suffering. We try to think of all the things we could do in the future to prevent that suffering from happening. And what I'm suggesting is that when you are feeling pain, one thing that you can do, besides checking your stories and choosing or trying on different perspectives, is to release your need for things to be different.

Really what I'm saying is to have acceptance of what is happening. So much of the suffering that we cause ourselves, honestly, is because we want things to be different than what they are. And if there's anything that I know for sure, it's that things are going to happen the way they're going to happen, and that we have so much less control than we think we have. I've talked about control in previous podcasts, and how those of us who are control freaks, and I'm raising my hand, oftentimes are control freaks because on some level we think if we can control everything... or we blame ourselves, I should say, for everything, because we think if we're the cause of the problem, then we can fix the problem. Right? "If I'm the reason that caused this, then I can fix it." Right? It's a control issue. So we are actually in control of way less than we think we are. So so much of this is really about acceptance.

But what should we do, then, if we've decided, and I hope you have, that we're going to stop causing ourselves suffering, but we in fact are feeling pain? How do we bear pain when it happens? Because it will happen, to every single one of us. Small pains and life engulfing pains that you think will never, ever get better, like when you lose a spouse or a parent or a child. Well, the first thing, and this sounds very dark, but I used this with cancer, is to expect it. I think when something bad happens, we tend to go toward the question of, "Oh my god, why me?" And I went there for sure when I got my cancers, because there were two diagnoses. It's like, "Why me?" And the next thought right behind that was, "Why not me?"

It's so awful when it happens to you, whether that is a cancer diagnosis or the loss of a spouse or the loss of a child, which is just nearly unthinkable. It's so awful. And we read about those things and we hear about those things, and we push them away thinking, "That will never be me." And then they happen, and we think, "Why me?" And what I want you to think when that happens is, why not you? This is the human experience. We wouldn't be fully human without these things happening, and they happen to all of us at various levels, at various times.

So I don't mean to expect it to be like walking around waiting for the next shoe to drop or something to fall out of the ceiling and knock you dead, right? That's not what I mean. I mean that when pain visits, because it will know that it's just your turn. Everybody gets a turn. It's just your turn. And don't cause suffering to yourself by asking, "Why me?" Because honestly, why the fuck not you? Why did I get cancer? I have no fucking idea. It was my turn to have some pain in my life. And I learned a lot from it. It happens. It happens.

The second thing, which I think is the most important thing when you are dealing with a painful event, is to actually feel it. I tell the story quite a bit of a trial attorney who once reached out to me and said, "I had this loss, and I've never been able to get over it. I think about it all the time. It still hurts me so bad. I feel like it stopped me from doing some of the things that I really think I can be doing well, because I'm just stuck with it," basically, right? "It's stopped me. And how do I stop this? How do I stop being stuck in this pain?" And my first question to him was, "Have you ever allowed yourself to really feel it?" And he said, "I don't know what I have." And I said, "Would you be willing to feel it?" And he said, "I think so." And I said, "Let's do it right now. I'll do it with you. I'll be with you."

Even though we were on the phone, thousands of miles apart from each other, I said, "Let's bring you back to that day, and I want to bring you back into the courtroom, and let's bring the jury in, and I want you to remember what it was like when they read the verdict and what you felt. And I just want you... instead of pushing it away or trying to talk, I want you to just feel it." And as he started to feel it, he started to weep. And as he started to weep, I said, "What do you want to do right now? What's your body going to do?" He said, "I want to get on the floor." I said, "Let's get on the floor." And so we both got on the floor, and I was on the floor in Oregon and he was on the floor in the state that he was in, and I just held that space for him until he felt it. And I tell you, to this day, he'll say, "Sari, that changed everything. Just giving space to the pain changed everything."

We know about trauma that trauma is basically a painful event that gets stuck, and it's in the body, and it's not anything cognitive that we can usually get to cognitively. That's why there's EMDR and all different kinds of therapies to work with trauma. But that is the risk that you run when you don't fully allow yourself to feel the pain that you're feeling. Now, when you get that result in court or you receive that email in front of your staff, maybe that's not the right time, but I really do believe that you should give yourself time to feel, to cry, to talk to someone, because that's the way you're going to process it out. That's one way, if not the biggest way, to bear painful events.

And the last thing that I will say is you can learn from it. There's a lot of people who've gone through painful events, and they will hear me say this, "Learn from it." "Not every painful event is a learning opportunity, Sari. Sometimes shitty things just happen for shitty reasons, or for no fucking reason at all." Oh my god, I totally agree with you, and you can still learn from it. Why the fuck not wouldn't you learn from it? Everything is a learning opportunity. I invite you to invite some Mary Cogan into your life, and ask yourself, "And what did I learn?" Maybe not as you're feeling it, maybe not as it's happening, but as you feel it, as it starts to dim with time, why not? I think these are the things that actually create depth in us as human beings, when we learn from our darkest, deepest moments in life.

I know they've totally shaped who I am, because I've allowed them to. You all know, you shared this cancer journey with me. I could have kept that private. And I'm not saying that the people who do keep it private are doing it wrong, but for me, I knew, or I wanted, at least even before it started or at the beginning, that I was going to use this as an opportunity to grow. Whether that meant growing for six months and then I was dead, or if that was growing for however many years I had left. But I knew that I was choosing to use it as a learning experience. And that's what I did. And y'all learned right along with me. I'm so grateful for all of you who went through that with me.

I guess what I'm saying, as we wrap up today's episode, is that pain is life, your highness, but suffering is optional. It's something we do in response to pain, and that, we can learn to stop doing. All right, I love you and I'll talk to you next week.

Ever wish you had a place to practice your trial skills and connect with other lawyers who get it, and connect with me? Grab your seat in the H2H Playground. It's where you get real coaching, community, and strategies to actually grow your practice. Head to sariswears.com/play and get enrolled. Until next time.