How to Lessen Suffering: A Powerful New Take

Good Life Project

Jonathan Fields / Acast

Education, Wellness, Self-improvement, Midlife, Health & Fitness, Intentional Living, Personal Growth, Living Well, How To

4.5 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 22 January 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It's said, pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. But, is that true? Many of us live our lives in pursuit of certainty, believing that if we could just get things more stable - emotionally, financially, relationally - then we’d finally feel at ease. We wouldn't struggle with anxiety, stress, and fear. we wouldn't suffer so much. Problem is, that approach often deepens our suffering, rather than relieves it. Maybe you've felt this very thing.

In this powerful episode on healing and resilience and how to relieve suffering, Jonathan sits down with Dr. Suzan Song, a Harvard- and Stanford-trained psychiatrist, humanitarian researcher, and author of the new book Why We Suffer and How We Heal. Dr. Song has spent decades working with individuals and communities living through profound instability, revealing a gentler, more honest reframe: healing, lessening suffering, doesn’t come from chasing certainty and stability, but from learning how to relate differently to the inevitability of pain, uncertainty, and change.

In this conversation, discover:

Why pain is inevitable, but suffering often grows from the stories we tell.
The hidden role of our nervous system and memory in shaping our experience of hardship.
The power of ritual—not as performance, but as a path to emotional grounding and resilience.
What purpose really is, and why it’s often already present, woven into our lives through mattering.
How genuine healing happens in relationship, not in isolation, transforming our approach to mental health.

This is an invitation to stop blaming yourself for not feeling satisfied, let go of suffering, and remember that you don’t have to navigate life’s instabilities alone. Sometimes, relief comes not from doing more, but from allowing yourself to feel everything, then learn how to live with the truth of uncertainty in a world that will never stop changing.

You can find Suzan at: Website | Linkedin | Episode Transcript

If you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Adam Grant about rethinking beliefs and inner patterns.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	So many of us move through life believing that if we could just get more things to be stable,
0:06.4	emotionally, financially, relationally, that we'd finally feel at ease. And we work so hard to kind of
0:12.7	fix what's broken, to manage the uncertainty and to quiet the discomfort. Yet even when life
0:18.5	looks fine on the outside, something inside, it still feels unresolved.
0:22.8	And today's conversation sits right at that tension with a powerful reframe of this struggle.
0:28.2	You are not broken.
0:29.6	My guest today is Dr. Suzanne Song, a Harvard and Stanford trained psychiatrist, and a humanitarian researcher who has spent more than two decades sitting with people living through
0:38.2	profound instability and crises, real suffering. She's also the author of the upcoming book
0:44.2	Why We Suffer and How We Heal. In this conversation, we explore why pain is unavoidable, but suffering
0:50.9	so often deepens when we resist instability. We talk about the simple power of
0:56.6	ritual and belonging and really how genuine healing happens in relationship, not in isolation.
1:02.5	And we dive into the skills that help us move through change without losing ourselves. This is a
1:07.6	conversation for anyone who's tired of trying to fix themselves and really ready to embrace a gentler, more honest path, one that reminds us that suffering is not a personal failure, but a part of being human. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.
1:29.7	The work that you've been doing for a long time clinically and in the field and around
1:34.2	the world is deeply fascinating and has exposed you to in a lot of different ways, pain,
1:42.0	loss, and suffering and how it's experienced in different ways
1:45.5	by different people and different contexts. As I was thinking about a conversation, there was a
1:50.7	quote that jumped out at me that is, actually, it's a quote from Hureki Murakami, from his
1:57.2	wonderful book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, but it's been kind of memified all over the web.
2:02.4	And the quote is, pain is inevitable.
2:05.1	Suffering is optional.
2:07.2	How does that land with you?
	...

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