Socrates said, “…, for people’s souls give up much more easily in hard study than in physical training, since the pain – being peculiar to them and not shared with their body – is more their own.” (Republic VII, 535b)
One of the very first obstacles that we will learn together is overcoming the feeling of being tired during a study session. In general, people suffer from procrastination before engaging in learning; however, for a victim, procrastination takes the form of a sever heavy weight that causes the eyes to close. The term sever in this sentence is used in a legal context, which is, something that is of an extreme and is not overcome without medical intervention.
In the Republic, Socrates made it clear that for the average person, a person will give up faster while learning a difficult study than engaging in physical training; thus, for the average person learning is difficult.
Why does he say this?
He believes that the soul (mind not brain) is “peculiar” to the human body (physical human body), but exercising the human body is something that the mind is familiar with. For example, a mind can correlate 10lbs of weight to the pain of lifting 10lbs of weight; however, the mind experiencing pain while learning is unusual and even misunderstood. His explanation argues that while we are obtaining knowledge we should feel a type of pain that is not easily understood.
So, learning is suppose to hurt – that is “o.k,” when we know and prepare for the pain. Healing from sexual assault requires a deep investigation into the psyche. Within the psyche we learn about thy-self, and the deeper we go the more we learn, and the more we learn the more it will hurt.
Tips on How to Prepare for the Pain:
1) Clean the house, this includes bathrooms, bedding, clothing, and wash the floors. After therapy you may be on the couch crying for a few days. A clean home will help beat future negative thoughts such as, “I can’t believe I’m not cleaning.” In stead, you will be proud of yourself for preparing for the dark times.
2) Prepare many different types of salads and store them in containers in the fridge. If you have children spend an entire day cooking different main types of meals. When the depression hits hard, you won’t be able to move much, but you will be able to throw some food on a plate and heat it in the microwave. At this point, sit the kids at the coffee table and watch a movie with them.
3) If your a single parent and your children have sports, swimming lessons, etc, consider starting therapy in the next season and don’t enroll them in any activities while you are undergoing therapy. This is hard to accept, but after therapy running a red light is normal; safety first. Little to no driving until your psyche is in sync with your vision.
4) The depression will lift as you get rest. After therapy it takes time for the neurons to fire again.
5) You will get better at dealing with the dark times; although the pain will continue to accompany learning, you will develop the skills to walk it out.
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