Is there any meaning
to deep and prolonged sorrow?

If we want to find a coherent and rational explanation for the deep distress that many people suffer in life, then we have to make a fundamental choice over our approach. I have never found any coherent and rational explanation within traditional christian teachings, and neither have I found any within conventional science theories. If we want to search for a realistic explanation, then we have to step outside of christian teachings and outside of scientific theories. However, if we are not prepared to do this, then we have to give up the search for rational meaning. Therefore the fundamental choice is, which option do we take?

The answer that I give lies outside of christian and science views. It has two main topics to it.

The first topic to explore is what are our views on the two end points of life – birth and death. If we believe that we did not exist before we were born, then a sense of meaning will elude us. If also we believe that at death we either cease to exist or we spend the rest of eternity in paradise, then sorrow becomes meaningless. So the basic idea that we need to accept in order to begin the exploration of meaning is that when we are born we have come from somewhere, and when we die we go to somewhere. This basic idea brings us to the theory of reincarnation. There is more than one version of reincarnation theory, and my particular version brings in my understanding of how the subconscious mind works. [¹]

For the second topic I focus on dysfunctional relationships, since they are perhaps the prime cause of sorrow for most people. A relationship becomes dysfunctional when the people involved cannot handle negative emotions in a constructive manner. Within such relationships we need to understand how and why prolonged sorrow is resolved. I consider a relationship that has come to be divided into the roles of victim and offender/manipulator over one or more issues. I consider that this type of relationship is easier to understand than less extreme ones. For most people, childhood is a rough period of life, with the child being subjected to abuse - verbal, physical, or sexual. [Verbal abuse will be anything that denigrates him, such as persistent fault-finding, or regularly telling a child that he is useless, or that he will always be a failure in life]. The child may be passive towards this process of abuse, or else perhaps seek ways of learning to control situations in order to mask his distress. Hence many children grow up to be vulnerable in some aspects of their character, and may fall into the roles of victim or manipulator.

Now it has been recognised within psychology that many victims, once they have become adults, turn into offenders or manipulators themselves. They do to others what was done to themselves. Why is this? The answer centres on guilt. If the victim develops a strong sense of guilt towards the abuse that has happened to him, then this, in suitable circumstances, may make him turn into an offender himself. [²]

Or this process can spread over many lifetimes, so that a person is a victim in one lifetime, a manipulator in the next one, then a victim in the next, then a manipulator in the next, and so on. What is happening is that a person falls into the process of alternating between victim and offender roles that may last for many, many lifetimes.

How is this process resolved so that it ceases? It ceases (for the victim) when the victim no longer has any resentment towards the offender. The victim no longer desires to take revenge on the offender. This comes about through the generation of forgiveness. [³]. Forgiveness has the function of enabling the victim to break his emotional attachments to the offender. So long as the victim hates the offender, the emotional bonds to the offender persist. It is very much harder for the offender to break the emotional attachments to the victim since the offender is unlikely to generate feelings of forgiveness. The offender may develop feelings of remorse for the ways in which he treated the victim, but remorse does not break emotional bonds.

Does this alternating process of victim and offender serve any purpose? Yes. In my view, it holds the key to understanding sorrow. This process enables a person to see both sides of the issues that are at stake, even though it may require multiple lifetimes to achieve this result. If we only desire to understand the victim’s viewpoint, or if we only want to understand the offender’s viewpoint, then we can only understand half the problem. When the victim learns to see both sides of the problem, usually either through therapy or by using his intuition, then this understanding facilitates the generation of forgiveness. His intuition enables him to attune to his feelings of being an offender in a previous lifetime.

Additionally, if the person learns to improve his social skills (for example, becoming able to negotiate or compromise over problems) by attending suitable classes, he reduces the likelihood of being a victim or an offender over other issues in a future lifetime.

Now I can give my view on the meaning of sorrow. Sorrow, by putting us into a recurring process of alternating between the roles of victim and offender, enables each person to understand, eventually, both sides of issues that are causing distress. As a person generates forgiveness, so he can thereby stop blaming both himself and other people for the hardships that humans often experience in life.

How is sorrow resolved? – by forgiveness.

Why is sorrow resolved? – because the person can see both sides of the issues.

What does a person gain from sorrow?

What I have been suggesting is that sorrow functions as a learning process, enabling a person to develop better and more harmonious relationship skills. The person learns better ways of handling complex emotional situations. However, since people usually learn slowly (since complex situations have many issues to them), this learning process requires numerous lifetimes to attain its objectives. Emotions always present the greatest challenge for people to master.

The number in brackets at the end of each reference takes you back to the paragraph that featured it.

[¹]. My ideas on reincarnation are in two articles in section 4 on the home page. [1]

[²]. The change from victim to offender is possible because of the unusual nature of catharsis. Catharsis can reverse the person's values. This is explained in the article on Catharsis and Suggestion.

In addition, I have an article on another of my sites, The Strange World of Emotion. The article is Reversal of Values during Catharsis, and is at http://website.lineone.net/~ian_heath2/2f-reversal of values.htm [2]

[³]. I have an article on forgiveness in the section on Abreaction. [3]

The articles in this section are :

Levels of Suffering

The Purpose of Suffering

Is there any meaning to deep and prolonged sorrow?

Copyright © 2009 Ian Heath
All Rights Reserved

The copyright is mine, and the article is free to use. It can be reproduced anywhere, so long as the source is acknowledged.

Ian Heath, London UK

My email address is likely to change,
so if you want to write to me, go to the Home page
and use the address at the bottom.

www.dawndreamer.modern-thinker.co.uk/

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