I regularly made an effort to remember one of the most important lessons from my training: There's no hierarchy of pain. Suffering shouldn't be ranked, because pain is not a contest. Spouses often forget this, upping the ante on their suffering—I had the kids all day. My job is more demanding than yours. I'm lonelier than you are. Whose pain wins—or loses?

But pain is pain.

......

But Wendell told me that by diminishing my problems, I was judging myself and everyone else whose problems I had placed lower down on the hierarchy of pain. You can't get through your pain by diminishing it, he reminded me. You get through your pain by accepting it and figuring out what to do with it. You can't change what you're denying or minimizing. And, of course, often what seem like trivial worries are manifestations of deeper ones.

想起来以前吐苦水的时候，那些提供情绪价值的朋友，还有给我实质性帮助的人。现在想想真的感谢当时的他们。不过吐苦水很容易失去朋友（不是）所以渐渐地都是自己消解了。不知道自己是麻木了还是怎样，现在想吐些什么都失语。