Thanks for clarifying - it makes more sense now! I have been thinking about her defining suffering as being a temper tantrum that things didn't go as we planned.
Now I may have misunderstood, but it does seem to me that there is much more to suffering than this, although i recognise that there is a strong element of this.
For example, pain and chronic illness, having a child with a disability. Some conditions are painful. In dealing with them there is an element of suffering that strengthens and builds us [A bit like being on weights machines!] We perhaps don't always get there without some grief and suffering.
it is the being defined by this, and hanging on to it, and using it as an excuse, that is unhealthy. Suffering because of pain and grief is part of the healing process. Only by facing our pain can we fully work through it and not be frightened of feeling it again, because we have mastered it, it has not mastered us.
I dealt with this in the early part of the summer. The pain locked away that other posters have referred to. I finally got it out and looked at it, experienced it fully [and boy did it hurt] and now it has little or now power over me. Fear of the pain was becoming greater than working through the pain itself.
I think self realisation is tremendously important, and not losing ourselves in a relationship, but I do think there is also an element of loss of self that is healthy. Parents grow through caring for children, and putting their needs first at times. We all see examples of where parents do too much and where also they do too little and put themselves first, to the detriment of their children's well being [and ultimately their own].
Maturity, it seems to me, is recognising and nurturing our precious and individual self-hood, but also being prepared to put it to one side for another's good, if need be. I think this is different from co-dependence, because it comes from strength, not weakness. It is like, for example,the difference between enabling an alcoholic, or drug user, and making the decision to care for someone with a terminal illness.
