I recently celebrated my 35th birthday, and near the end of those 24 hours, surrounded by improv friends, a birthday tradition was invoked as they chanted at me to “share wisdom.”
I declined. Whatever questionable wisdom I have, it’s sort of my day-job to share it. And honestly, being put on the spot in a big social circle, I felt a little like when someone hears you do comedy and immediately says, “Go on then—make me laugh.”
Being good improvisers, they pivoted: “Fine. Anti-wisdom. Give us the worst advice.”
To my surprise, the words came out instantly:
“Wallow in the bad feelings as long as possible. And if you’re not suffering, you’re not doing anything worthwhile.”
Someone repeated it back as, “Follow the suffering,” a tongue-in-cheek shadow-twin to the improv truism follow the fun.
Follow the suffering. The phrase at once gripped me and made me giggle.
I adored it, and out loud, I said, “Actually, I don’t hate that.”
For years, I’ve been in a cocoon of suffering, developing.
Putting it that way is absolutely melodramatic, but I am coming out of a blurry stretch of life where I spent most of my time coping—parenting, marriage, sheer survival—helping three other nervous systems regulate before I ever got around to my own.
If someone had observed me from the outside, they might have thought I was actually following that anti-wisdom. Wallowing. Suffering. Stuck.
And honestly, maybe that’s why the phrase hit me so hard. The obvious interpretation felt like an accidental summary of a period I never consciously chose.
But “Follow the Suffering” tickled my brain, and a different interpretation occurred to me. I told my friends I thought I could turn it into something both earnest and useful, which I guess I am attempting in writing this.
So, obviously, I’m not pro-suffering…
And I don’t believe artists have to suffer to make good work, or that we’re here on earth to toil. I actively teach people how to stop creating unnecessary suffering in their own bodies, so I think a lot about this.
As humans, we have a negativity bias—experiences of discomfort or threat imprint more strongly than positive ones. Bummer.
But in our culture, we swim in toxic positivity.
We suppress those negative experiences that have such a big effect on us, trying to shrug off or swiftly fix discomfort, reframing bad things as good things, pretending everything is fine even if it means gaslighting ourselves or others.
That’s a problem, too.
And as I emerge from my cocoon—some odd little moth with slightly bent wings figuring out how to fly—I can appreciate the specific kind of learning that comes from following the suffering instead of ignoring it.
Because it’s been the honest appraisal of things I didn’t like—really, truly didn’t like—that finally nudged me toward the work and life that actually fit.
There is information hidden in what we dislike.
“Follow the suffering” doesn’t have to mean stewing in it or dramatizing it.
It can mean truly paying attention to what I don’t like and treating that as useful information.
Sometimes that leads to acceptance, or acceptance-for-now, of a better understood bit of suffering.
Sometimes it leads to the possibility of a small shift in behavior or expectation that helps to dissolve the discomfort.
Sometimes it points toward a bold experiment—and then noticing what I don’t like about that experiment, and iterating again.
Like and dislike, east and west.
I often ask people to look for what they like in something they are doing (say, a performance or their present posture) as a direction toward improving that thing. And it’s useful!
Noticing what we like, and then giving ourselves permission to do more of it—or even just asking how could I invite more?—can be surprisingly powerful.
But it’s easy to lose touch with the other half of that pair. I sometimes hesitate to ask what someone dislikes to avoid feeding our negativity bias.
“Follow the suffering” is prompting me to reconsider as it reminds me of the importance of dislike as a direction on our compass.
Dislike is something central to decision-making, taste-shaping, and navigating the reality of limited resources. And it’s central to authenticity.
It’s a quiet voice saying “Not that one, not that way…” while I’m sorting through anything and everything:
how I spend my time (and how I’d like to stop spending my time)
how I express myself—in words, on stage, in teaching
which business projects are actually worth my effort
how I show up with my kids
what commitments deserve my (very) finite energy
And once the “not that one” voice is allowed to speak, the reciprocal voice—oh, I like that—returns stronger and clearer. They work together.
(Relevant aside: while writing this, I’m listening to a full-blown meltdown over hot chocolate before bedtime and just got news that something I spent a week fixing earlier this year is broken again. It is tempting to give up and collapse into bed… but I know I’d regret that. And regret is its own flavor of suffering I am learning to listen to in my creative process.)
So yeah, follow the suffering—at least long enough to hear what it’s saying.
Maybe the anti-wisdom wasn’t far off. Follow the suffering is a ridiculous suggestion, but I think it’s a good prompt to pay attention to all the parts of myself, including the ones that I don’t like.
And, for me anyway, that ridiculousness adds a lightness that keeps me from actually getting sucked into the negativity so that I can actually hear what it has to tell me.
If you resonate with any of this, I’d love to know what you hear when you follow your suffering, giving your discomforts a seat at the table right next to your joys.
And if you don’t like this idea, well, listen to that dislike instead! I’d still love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
(If you like reading my notes, you can subscribe with a click right here to get them delivered straight to you.)