Pain, values, compassion, and a dying dog

“Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.”

 — Rumi

Just about three years ago, I wrote a blog post titled “Pain and values: two sides of the same coin” about our amazing dog Dalai. That post turned out to be one of the most popular pieces I’ve written. I wrote about the simultaneous, and I would say inseparably linked, love and pain that was consistently present for me when I was with Dalai, who was somewhere around 17-18 years old at the time. Because so many people have talked to me about that piece, I thought I would share an update and also some new thoughts I have on the topic of pain and values. If you want to read the original piece, you can find it here.

Dalai is still here, and so is the pain.

Believe it or not, Dalai is still with us, and at around 20+ years old, I’d say that little old lady is doing something right! She comes to work with us every day, usually riding in a trailer pulled behind the bike. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer about a year ago and has been on palliative care since. With the help of our amazing veterinarian, Heather Dillon, DVM, we’re able to manage her physical pain quite well and Dalai still has a wonderful quality of life.

And though I feel incredibly fortunate that Dalai is still with us, so too is the pain, anxiety, and sadness I feel when I think about what is to come. In fact, it’s difficult to admit, but there are even times when the pain is so intense that I notice having the thought that I wish it was over. Then of course I feel incredible pain at having that thought and the cycle goes on.

Compassion as palliative care

In my last post about this, I focused on the idea that I can’t move in the direction of my values if I’m not willing to experience painful thoughts and feelings – If I’m not willing to have those painful thoughts and the sadness that shows up when I’m with Dalai, I can’t care for her in the way I would choose to during this time in her life. The only way to get away from these difficult thoughts and feelings is to not be around her. And while it’s still very painful for me to be around Dalai, I’m not willing to give up one moment I could have with her just to avoid that pain. And in these past few years as both she and I have been working through the process of her aging and dying, I’ve learned a few things about how I want to be with that pain. So I thought I’d share something that for me has become an essential component in that equation of values and pain– compassion.

Just as my loved ones and I have been very intentional over these past several years about attending to Dalai’s physical pain as best we can, it’s also been helpful for me to attend to the emotional pain that those of us who love Dalai feel as we see her dying. Compassion, which literally means “to suffer together”, is a willingness to be present to suffering (another’s or your own) and a desire to ease that suffering. Compassion, including self-compassion, is my palliative care. It is what I am using to help ease the suffering my loved ones and I are feeling. Even though I help people develop self-compassion and be intentional about their values for a living, I found that although I wasn’t avoiding being with Dalai in order to avoid feeling the pain, I wasn’t fully present to it either; it was more like, “Well, that’s there and there’s nothing I can do about it, so I’m just not going to think about it.” And that can be helpful at times. But that isn’t how I treat others that I love when they are in pain and it felt incongruent with my values to treat my own pain in that way. So, over the past couple of years I have focused more and more on using compassion exercises in my own life, as a way to not only ease the pain I am feeling, but also honor it.

Quick self-compassion break

One of my favorite compassion exercises that I’ve incorporated into my life is Kristen Neff’s Self Compassion Break. The self-compassion break exercise gives me a way to treat myself with gentleness and kindness and also connect to the common humanity that is suffering. It is very quick and you can do it anywhere, which is great given that pain does not conveniently just show up when I have time to do a 30 minute compassion meditation. You can find an audio of the exercise here and a written script here. So next time you notice struggling with painful thoughts or feelings, especially when you know they are linked with something you care very deeply about, you might consider giving this exercise a try. And If you’re interested in reading more about compassion, my colleagues Jason Luoma (who also happens to be Dalai’s guardian too!) and Melissa Platt and I have a site dedicated to our work in that area called “ACT With Compassion” that you can check out here.

Thomas Merton once wrote that “Compassion is the keen awareness of the interdependence of all things.” When I am practicing compassion, I also often notice being more connected to all beings, including that little old dog at the heart of this all.

Author: Jenna LeJeune, Ph.D

Jenna LeJeune, Ph.D. is co-founder and President of Portland Psychotherapy Clinic, Research, and Training Center in Portland, Oregon. As a clinical psychologist, Jenna specializes in working with clients struggling with relationship difficulties, including problems with intimacy and sexuality, trauma-related relationship challenges, and struggles people have in their relationship with their own bodies. She is the co-author of the forthcoming book, “Values in Therapy: A Clinician’s Guide to Helping Clients Explore Values, Increase Psychological Flexibility, and Live a More Meaningful Life.” Jenna is also a peer-reviewed ACT trainer and provides ACT trainings to professionals around the world.

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