#152: The 3 Ways to Find Meaning in Suffering | Jack Beers

So many of us from divorced or dysfunctional families never learned how to deal with pain and suffering in a healthy way. As a result, we usually either numb the pain or get stuck in bitterness. 

But what if you could not only learn how to navigate pain in a healthy way, but actually draw meaning from your pain and emerge stronger? That’s what we discuss in this episode, plus:

• The shocking diagnosis Jack received at 11—and how it rewired his entire future

• Why suffering always pushes you into one of three paths (and how only one leads to freedom)

• The 3 ways to find meaning in suffering and the obstacles that prevent it

If you’re suffering, perhaps because of your parents’ divorce or the breakdown of your family, this episode is for you.

Get Jack’s Course or FREE Class: RISE: Drawing Meaning from Suffering Through the Lens of St. John Paul II, Victor Frankl and Jesus

Book a FREE Mentorship Session with Jack

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Get Joey’s Book or FREE chapters: It’s Not Your Fault

Jocko Willink "GOOD" (Viral Video)

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TRANSCRIPT

Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!

Joey (00:44)

Welcome to the Restored Podcast. I'm Joey Ponnarelli. If you come from a divorced or a broken family, this show is for you. We help you heal your brokenness, navigate the challenges, and build healthy relationships so you can break that cycle and build a better life. My guest today is Jack Beers. Jack has actually been on the podcast before. He's the founder of the Catholic Mentor. On top of over a decade of experience as a speaker and leader in ministry, Jack is a certified mentor through the Catholic Psych Institute, which basically means he's trained to walk with a company.

people who are going through a lot of hard things in life, through storms in life, through an integration of sound psychology and authentic Catholic anthropology. The certification was developed and led by Dr. Greg Batara, who's been on the podcast as well. Jack lives in Cincinnati with his wife and their three children. The truth is that so many of us who come from divorced or dysfunctional families never learned how to deal with pain and suffering in life in a healthy way. And as a result, we usually fall into numbing our pain or we get stuck in bitterness. But

What if, what if you can not only learn how to navigate your pain in healthy ways, but actually draw meaning from your suffering and emerge even stronger? That's what we discussed in this episode, plus the shocking diagnosis that Jack received at 11 years old and how it rewired his entire future, why suffering always pushes you into one of three paths and how only one leads to freedom. We talk about why we often fall into numbing our pain and the three ways to find meaning in suffering and how to overcome the obstacles that prevent it.

And finally, Jack offers a new resource to help you find meaning in your suffering. So if you're suffering, if you're going through pain right now, perhaps because of your parents divorced or the breakdown of your family, this episode is for you. Now in this episode, we do talk about God and faith, that if you don't believe in God, you're totally welcome here. This is not a strictly religious podcast, everyone knows that. So wherever you're at, I'm glad you're here. If you don't believe in God, my challenge for you would be this, just listen with an open mind, even if you were to skip the God parts, you're still gonna benefit from this episode. And with that, here's our

Jack, welcome back to the show, great to have

Jack (02:38)

So good to be with you again, Joey.

Joey (02:40)

This topic is really near and to my heart. And because I think so many of us have gone through life without really receiving any training, formation, any sort of guidance on how to handle pain and suffering in life well, not to mention how to maybe draw meaning from it, how to draw some goodness from it. And what I've seen, especially in my own life and the lives of the young people that we work with, is that so often we respond to pain in really unhealthy, destructive ways.

just to cope with it, just to kind of numb ourselves. And so I'm curious, like, why are you so passionate about helping people draw meaning from suffering and navigating this whole area of like pain?

Jack (03:13)

Yeah, I think we talked a little bit about this the first time that I was here, but I was diagnosed when I was 11 years old with Crohn's disease and the doctors gave dark prognosis. You won't be much taller than five feet, you won't be able to go away to school, you won't be able to hold down a job, you'll have three hospital stays a year every year until you die and your life expectancy is pretty low. And the road to proving that prognosis wrong was extraordinarily difficult.

a lot of suffering, lot of physical suffering, a lot of emotional suffering, being ostracized from other people, but also suffering of the will. In order for me to get healthy, I had to adhere to a really intense diet. This food regimen was 12 foods total, including spices. So, salt is on the list of 12. It was 12. I ate a variation of the same three meals every day for 12 years.

a lot of suffering in that. But when I got to the other side, when I graduated college and I'm six feet tall and I have a job lined up and I had one hospital stay in the 12 years since I had been diagnosed and fully healthy, in remission, living a normal life, I got to that day, I got to that graduation and there was so much personal satisfaction. And I remember feeling just like so much joy and so much

so much meaning and it contrasting with a number of people in my life, in particular, as somebody who I had been close to who had died of a heroin overdose, that it was so clear to me that everybody suffers. It's universal. Like the old phrases that the only guarantees in life are death and taxes. It's like, no, there's another guarantee. That guarantee is that you will suffer and that suffering, you'll either respond to it by drawing meaning out of it.

by it totally breaking you and destroying you, or you'll dive so far into numbing agents. And there's so many different numbing agents, work, drugs, alcohol, sex, now social media and your phone. There's so many numbing agents. Those are the three paths that you can take. There's not a fourth path, there's not 10 options, there's not 50 options, there's three. You can repress it through numbing, it can destroy you and turn you into a bitter person, or you can get better.

One of the phrases I like to use is like, when suffering comes, you can get bitter or better. Like that really is the pathway. And I didn't feel like there was anything special about me. I still don't feel like there's anything special about me, right? Like I don't necessarily have some sort of extra human capacity for suffering or whatever. there isn't necessarily something that makes me an outlier from other people. And so I wanted to reconstruct what happened. Like what did happen?

How did I get from being 11 and just having this horrible prognosis to the last 10 years of my life, total remission, total normalcy, able to do everything that a normal human person would be? How did I get there? And is there a way to duplicate it? And so I just, really wanted to pay forward some of the gifts that had been given to me to other people, because everybody suffers and you actually do have the ability and the capacity to make the most of it.

Joey (06:37)

Now this is again, just really close to my heart. I actually have a talk that I give called ⁓ Better Not Bitter. Yeah, yeah, no, because it's just so important for all of us. Whenever I give the talk, I feel like I'm speaking to myself and everyone else gets to listen. I need to this stuff again and again, because I'm no expert on this stuff, but it's just been a lot of lessons over the years that have been helpful in navigating suffering, because I handled it so poorly so many times. like, okay, this has to be a better way to do this. But I want to stay there a little bit with like,

Jack (06:44)

Really? didn't know that.

Joey (07:06)

Why we handle it poorly. Yeah, why do we handle it so poorly? Obviously like it's really attractive to just binge on social. It's attractive to, you know, fall into like binging on sex or porn or whatever to just numb ourselves. But I'm curious, like what's underneath all of that? Like what are we looking for in those like kind of empty pursuits?

Jack (07:26)

One of it is just escaping, right? When you're confronting something dark and you're uncertain about how things are going to go, you're uncertain about how things are going to change, at a certain point, you want to stop having to confront that thing. Or if you're, let's say you're younger and you just don't have the capacity for it, you can't articulate what's happening to you, right? Like you can't even articulate the emotions. One of the most important jobs of a parent is that when, you know, your three-year-old is throwing a tantrum, that you name what's happening.

You're like, what you feel right now is frustration. You are frustrated. And these are your options in how you can handle being frustrated, right? And so when you suffer, it's so disorienting. It's almost like you come back to that state of like, I don't know what's happening. It's difficult to really orient my life and say, I know where north is, I know where south is. Like it's very disorienting. And so you just, you wanna step out of it. You want to walk away from it.

⁓ And until you have a real sense that there's a pathway forward, you would rather stay distanced from the mess than have it knock you on your butt and you stay on your butt or even try to get up and go forward. One of the things that's really fascinating is when a storm comes in the animal world, there's only one animal that like turns toward the storm and it's the buffalo. Like everybody else, their instinct is to take shelter or to try to outrun the storm, but the buffalo is like,

The shortest distance between me and calm, between me and peace, between me and sun is actually walking into it. And let me turn toward the storm, let me walk into it. And so we're the opposite of the buffalo. Like we're, our natural instinct is to hide, is to run. And it's that flight, or freeze mechanism. And what we don't realize is we have the capacity to be buffalo. Like we can actually turn toward the storm and we can actually walk through it and come out to the other side.

Joey (09:18)

Love that. Love that. So I want to dive into this. Then how does someone draw meaning from suffering? How do we navigate this in a healthier way?

Jack (09:26)

Yeah, so yeah, let's dive into what Viktor Frankl calls the three paths to meaning and we can do that. And if we have a chance to, I'd also like to talk about the obstacles to actually pursuing these three paths because there are serious obstacles to doing that as well. But the three paths are really important and they're accessible to everyone at every time. And here's how I know this. They've been developed by Viktor Frankl, Jewish psychologist who formulated these three paths to meaning.

in the context of being in Auschwitz in a concentration camp and then reapplying it in other contexts in the development of a form of psychology called logotherapy. So what I'll share is tried and tested and tried and tested in the worst of human circumstances. So this is like as raw and as real as we can get to no matter where you are.

As long as you have your mental faculties, you can follow these three paths to drawing meaning from your suffering. The first is in relationship. So Victor Frankl, in his suffering and in his pain, he experienced despair, he experienced a sense of meaningless into what was happening. And instead of absorbing the meaninglessness, instead of absorbing the pain, he actually leveraged his imagination. And he leveraged his imagination to reconnect

with an experience of love. And so he would imagine his wife's face. He'd be walking in what would largely be considered a death march. And he would, in his mind's eye, imagine the love that he experienced from his wife. And love is the highest form of the human experience. And it is the highest form of relational connection. And the reality of connecting with love gave him the inner tools to endure the intensity of the moment. So that's

That's the first one. it's not everybody maybe is sitting there being like, I've encountered love. And if that's the case, like the other option that Viktor Frankl talks about is encountering beauty. Like if your world is so dark and difficult and you're like, I can't even think of a single experience of being loved, go watch a sunrise, go see something or seek something that is beautiful. And Frankl talks about how when you encounter something beautiful that is outside of yourself,

you are actually drawn from outside of your pain and you can look at your pain and you can see your pain with compassion and understanding, but you can also feel at that point in time a desire that will emerge to press on, to keep going, to keep fighting the fight that you're trying to make the most of whatever is in front of you. so, Frankl was on this first step is like,

Even when things get as dark as they can be, the sun still rises in the morning and you can still go see something beautiful that will draw out the best in you. So I want to pause at the first one. I don't want to just necessarily go through all three because I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, on even your own experience of beauty and love and how that maybe has impacted your journey.

Joey (12:36)

Yeah, no, no, thanks for teaching on all this is so good. And one of the things that has hit me always is that just how healing and comforting love is overall. And even like, like you said, maybe someone doesn't have like a romantic partner, a boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, but even in my friendships with other guys, it's like that was incredibly like comforting and helpful to just be in their presence and not even to the extent that we were like talking about really difficult things that would come up at times, but it wasn't a constant like flow of like,

therapy. It was really just being in the presence, doing life together and really challenging each other to like be, you know, better men, to be virtuous men, not just, you know, maybe playing sports or video games together. There was like a bigger purpose, which I was really blessed with in high school to have those guys. So I could definitely see that there. And then when it comes to beauty, I remember just dealing with, you know, a lot of the kind of emotional turmoil and pain that followed my parents' ⁓ split and eventual divorce.

And just how, yeah, exactly what you said, how comforting it was to just watch the sunset, to listen to beautiful music, to eat good food, to just go on adventures with friends, eventually travel. That became such an amazing outlet for me. So I'm tracking it.

Jack (13:45)

Healing,

right? When you go travel, there's a healing component to new things and wonder and seeing that the world is big. My thing was I would go outside, especially in the winter on a clear night, and I would look up and I would just watch my breath move to the stars. And there was something so grounding about that. Like, I'm a guy, I'm not like, I'm gonna go seek beauty, you know? But that's what I was doing. was like, I need to know that there's something bigger happening than just me.

And love, yes, I don't just mean romantic love. I mean agape love or philia love, brotherly love, friendship love. Like an encounter with someone who tells you, like, I love you. One of the things that draws meaning for me out of this is when I work one-on-one with people who have obsessive-compulsive parts or even obsessive-compulsive desire or disorder, they will say things that maybe sound like irrational or whatever. Like I'm going to...

I'm afraid I won't get my car. I'm afraid of getting in my car because if I get my car, I'm going to run someone over. And the natural tendency is to say to them, you're not going to run anyone over. Just get in the car. You can do this. I'll show you. Everything's going to be fine. And it's actually the exact opposite of what you want to do. You don't want to reassure them through logic. You actually want to enter into the pain with them and say, even if that happens, even if you run someone over, you're not separated from love.

you will not do anything that separates you from love. And when I'm working with people, I'm specifically in those instances talking about the love of God. And there's a reason why God is such an important component of healthy therapy. Like it's a grounding experience for people to be able to be like, yes, even if this worst case scenario happens, like even if my parents get divorced or even if I never talk to my dad again, I'm not outside of the love of, I'm not outside of love. I'm not outside of the reach of love.

Even if I do this thing and my whole life crumbles like I'm not outside of it, it gives hope and it creates a context for actually drawing meaning from the suffering and the pain and people who have obsessive compulsive thoughts and ruminations and scrupulosities. mean, they're in serious pain a lot of the time and that's how we draw meaning. Wow.

Joey (15:57)

No, I love all this. I'd love to go deeper into the third point. What was that one?

Jack (16:01)

Okay, so number two actually is self-gift. Yep, so number one is relationships with love and with beauty. Number two is self-gift. So John Paul the Great actually talks about this, that as human beings, we don't just have a vocation, we are a vocation. And our existence as a human being, we are meant to be a self-gift to other people. That's our purpose in life, is to make the invisible God visible.

Joey (16:06)

I see, ⁓

Jack (16:30)

by being a self-gift. And he points to Jesus being really the only figure, like wisdom, guru, spiritual figure, that doesn't say the path to happiness is self-possession or self-mastery for its own sake. He's the only one who says, self-possess yourself, know thyself so you can give thyself. And Viktor Frankl, one of the things that he says in order to draw meaning out of suffering when you're in the context of suffering is that when you suffer, it's self-absorbing and self-defeating.

So if you can get outside of self by thinking of another person, deciding that, you know what, my friend is having a tough day or they have a big job interview, I'm gonna surprise them with coffee. That doing that, making yourself a gift, thinking of another, doing something selfless shows you that you don't have to be consumed or broken by your pain. You can still be a gift to the world. And that, in that context, and the context of suffering is tremendously

St. John Paul II talks about like, that's why Jesus gave us the parable of the Good Samaritan. Because man can't find himself except by making of his life a gift. And suffering, seeing the suffering of another draws love out from you. So even when you're suffering, when you see the suffering of another person, if you allow yourself to engage in that, it will actually draw out the best in you. It will draw out compassion, empathy, generosity, and then you'll see that

You're not broken by your suffering. You're not incapacitated by it. You actually still have the faculties of love and you still have the faculties that you need in order to be a gift. And even more so, if that person knows you're suffering, the gift you give them will have a tenfold impact. They'll be like, my gosh, I know that you're going through this really hard thing and you still thought of me before my job interview? Wow, right? Wow, it's incredible. So that's the second one, self-gift.

And then the third one is probably Frankl's most famous. know, he talked about how as long as we have our mental faculties, the last of human freedoms is choosing your attitude in any given circumstance. And your attitude in response to life can actually draw meaning from it. ⁓ So there's a really viral video that went out by Jocko Willick. And he went through this litany of things that he was, he's a Navy SEAL and he was a commander and he was in charge and

and people would come to him with all their problems. And he started developing this attitude where he would, someone would come up to him and be like, you know, we're out of ammunition over here. And he'd be like, good, good. That means we get to exercise our creativity or whatever it is that he would do. And he was like, I developed this attitude of whether good fortune or ill fortune comes my way, I'm going to respond with, this is for my highest good. Whatever it is, this is coming to me and it can be used for my highest good.

And I get to choose, I choose whether this tends for my highest good or it tends for my destruction. I choose. So he developed this attitude and you can see this across, you know, across the spectrum of people who make the most of their lives through difficult experiences. One of my favorites is Joan of Arc. Joan of Arc was persecuted largely for her faith after she had just saved France from being taken over by England. And so she's persecuted.

And during the persecution, people were like, you know, if you keep down this path, they're going to kill you. And she's like, I'm not afraid. I was born to do this. And I like, I put this over my kid's wall. I'll send you the pic, I'll send you the picture of this, but I had someone come in and paint and paint this picture and put words right above where my kids sleep. And it says, I'm not afraid. I was born to do this. And I call it our family motto. Cause I'm like, if I know it sounds dramatic, like sometimes it's bringing a bazooka to a fist fight, but if

If you get into a context where you're surprised by a test at school and you say, I'm not afraid, I was born to do this, or you realize that you like this girl and you're afraid to go tell her that you like her, I'm not afraid, I was born to do this, whatever this is, rejection, acceptance, boyfriend, ostracization, I was born to do this, they'll live an incredible life, incredible, incredible life, and there's literally nothing that will stop them. They will have a deeply meaningful life.

So those are the three, ⁓ its relationship with love and beauty, its self gift, and then its attitude.

Joey (20:57)

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I love this and we'll definitely make sure to link to that video by Jaco. I am. Yeah, it's a good one. I love that. And it's cool to see too, cause he's not like a deeply religious guy, but you know, there's a lot of even human wisdom in that approach of like, you know, something good can come from this. Not, not all is lost when things don't go our way. And, and you know, through the video, he, talks about specific examples. So definitely a great video. We'll link to that. Thank you for bringing that up. And the other thing I wanted to touch on briefly was

That advice to kind of look outside of your pain, look beyond your pain, look to someone else who's maybe going through something hard and helping them, was really transformative for me. I remember in high school, one of my mentors encouraging me to do that. And it helped so much. I wanted to kind of maybe get your advice on this one thing though. Sometimes I've gotten maybe a little bit of pushback on this or heard the objection that, but we can't always just focus outside of ourselves and focus on other people. There is perhaps a way to escape.

from your pain in an unhealthy way by just focusing on others outside of you. So what's that balance, I'm curious, between like sometimes you need to tend to your wounds, but other times, like you're saying, we have to look beyond our pain ⁓ because there is healing in doing that itself.

Jack (22:44)

So what's great about this question is this is one of the obstacles to drawing meaning from suffering. So the two biggest ones, and there are many, the first one is how you view your life. Do you view your life as something that were you made on purpose? If you were made on purpose for a purpose, you are going to go searching for the meaning and you are going to be willing to endure the dark night before the sun rises. You're gonna be willing to do it because there's

there's a perspective in your mind and in your heart that like you're here to do something meaningful. And it's not necessarily like, ⁓ I'm going to cure cancer. I'm going to do something and go viral. And we know whatever it is that, that is currently most attractive in the world. It might, it might simply be like for me, I got healthy and there's nothing more meaningful than because I got healthy, my kids are in the world. Like there's nothing more meaningful to me than thinking about that. Like,

If I had given up, they wouldn't be alive. I wouldn't know my son's smile. And there's a mystery to meaning in that it works backwards. It has a redeeming quality to it. That while you're going through it, it seems dark and it seems heavy. And when you get to a certain place in your life, you're almost forced to be grateful for it. Because if anything else had been different, you wouldn't get to where you've gotten.

Just like despair works backwards and even some of the pleasure and the joy that you experienced during the time of your trials, it can get taken from you if it leads you to a place of bitterness. If it leads you to a place of getting better, it works backwards. And there's tremendous mysterious meaning that comes from it of like looking back and being, I did make the most of that. And because I made the choices that I made, I'm here now. So that's one of the obstacles. The other obstacle

is just validating the fact that you're in pain. John Paul II says this, and I think it's so counterintuitive for people who are of faith and people who are not of faith. Because you'll go to a funeral in a Christian context and you'll hear people say things like, don't worry about it, they're in a better place. All is well, they're in a better place. And you contrast that with Jesus who knew he was going to resurrect Lazarus, being at the tomb of Lazarus minutes before he resurrected him.

weeping with Martha and Mary validating their emotional experience and their pain for the sake of validating their pain. And Jesus basically saying, resurrect after validating. Even Jesus, like if you look at the life of Jesus as someone who is a great person to model your life after, as someone who's best way to live. Like Jesus validated his own emotions in the Garden of Gethsemane. Like, Father, take this away from me. Jesus' sweat, blood.

because of how anxious he felt and he acknowledged the pain, he acknowledged the fear, he acknowledged his desire of not wanting to suffer and not wanting to go through that. And then because his feelings didn't rule his life, he still made the choice to do the thing he was called to do and the resurrection came from that. And so the obstacle oftentimes can be for us that we don't actually confront the brutal reality of our pain. It's like your dad cheated on your mom. Were you not worth it for him to stay faithful?

You know, like that's confront the brutal reality of that. That hurts. That stings. That's awful. That's heartbreaking. That's terrible. Those feelings don't change your calling and who you're made to be. But in order for us to get there, our first step, our first step toward healing and redemption and resurrection is staring that pain in the face and acknowledging it. Like this is terrible. I'm not okay. Doesn't mean I have to wallow in it and I get to ignore pain in other people.

doesn't mean I get to be absorbed by it. But if I don't acknowledge it, the door to the rest of your life is hard to open. Do you think that answers the question, or do you think it creates more mystery?

Joey (26:39)

No, that makes a ton of sense. remind me then the first obstacle is just how you view your life or would you phrase that a little bit differently?

Jack (26:45)

Yeah,

so I talk about it like this. When I was five years old, I was hit by a car and I flew 20 feet in the air. I landed on my head. Like everybody thought I was dead. And that happened at like two o'clock in the afternoon. At 2 a.m., I'm in my bed at home. Severe concussion, sprained neck, bruises all over my body, but no issues. No internal bleeding, no broken bones, no brain damage, nothing. And so for like three years straight, everybody was just like...

It's a miracle, kid. There's gotta be some reason why somebody was looking out for you. There's gotta be. Ever since that moment occurred, I have felt like I'm here on purpose. Before I ever really considered God or had a sense that there was a creator or anything, I just lived in this emotional and spiritual space of there's some purpose to my life. I was given a gift to stay on this earth and be alive, and I need to pay that gift back. And that, when the news hit that

I was sick and that my life might be over, there was a part of me that was like, no, no, I didn't survive that just to be crushed by this. There's something else going on here and I'm gonna try to make the most of this thing. It's that view on life, that view on self, that view on what it means to be human, that changes everything because if you don't believe that, if we just play that out, if it's like I'm here at random, then suffering is random, then obstacles are random and

Who cares if you make the most of it or not? And the reality is the rest of the world cares. Like your potential future kids care, you know? The person that you're meant to help a year from now cares. Like if you go through something, here, I want to say this to you too. ⁓ Sorry if I'm rambling here, but it just, it popped into my head. There's something really mysterious that St. Paul says. St. Paul says that Jesus's sacrifice on the cross was perfect. It's flawless. It was perfect. And

and we can make up for what's lacking in Christ's suffering. And it's like, how do you make sense of those two things? They seem like they're opposites. How do you make sense of them? And John Paul II, he says something so important, and if we believe this, it changes everything. He's like, Jesus' sacrifice was perfect, and there was nothing lacking in it whatsoever. But, but, our ability to relate to Jesus is made easier through the witness of other people. So Jesus is a man

who never married. There's a gap for a woman who has a miscarriage to be able to connect her suffering with Jesus' suffering. And that's bridged by another woman who also went through the same thing, who has found meaning in her suffering, who has found a deeper connection with God and the people around her through her suffering, who is now turning around and talking to this mother over here and giving her hope and making up for what is lacking in the space between where you are and where you...

where you wanna be. And it's the same thing for us. Like when you suffer, when you're going through something difficult, like exactly what you're doing with this podcast, Joey, right? Like if you had never made the most of the suffering that you went through when your parents divorced, you never would have created the podcast. You never would have turned around and lent a helping hand to other people. And how many people would have been worse off because you didn't create this podcast that gives people hope at restoration and healing, right? And so when you're in the mess, if you feel like your life has meaning and has inherent purpose,

you can actually look forward into the future and be like one day I'm gonna get here and I'm gonna turn around and help people like me and that'll be enough. Like that's the type of doors that can be open to you.

Joey (30:20)

That's

good, that's helpful. And I'm curious, I'm eager to hear the other obstacles.

Jack (30:25)

Yeah, so another obstacle is why does God allow suffering? Like, why does suffering exist at all? And another way of looking at this is like the problem of evil. So great minds like Nietzsche, you know, he's a brilliant man, deep philosopher, and he's nihilistic. He essentially believes that there is no real meaning to life, that all there is is a will to power. And he concluded that like all life is is suffering and the best you can do is find a way to pleasure.

Right? Like he did not believe that God existed primarily because of the existence of suffering. And John Paul II, I'm just going to use him. I'm going to stand on his shoulders because he is so compelling on this. He walks us through this in a really powerful way, whether you believe in God or don't believe in God. The wisdom from this is really meaningful. He says it's natural as a human being when you suffer to ask why. He goes as far as to say, as God expects us to ask him.

Why am I suffering with a mind full of dismay and anxiety? God expects us to do that. He doesn't condone us. He doesn't judge us. He doesn't get upset with us. He's actually literally waiting for us to go to him and say, why am I suffering with a mind full of dismay and anxiety? So you unexpectedly lose your spouse. You get a cancer diagnosis. You tear your meniscus. Your car is broken into. You unjustly lose your job. You may say, why is this happening to me? And John Paul II says,

God expects you to go to him as that being your first reaction and say, with a mindful of dismay and anxiety, why? Why? And he said, like, when suffering happens, we're uncomfortable with the uncertainty that exists. Like, why? I'm a twin. Why did I get Crohn's and my twin sister didn't? Right? Why did that happen? You know, why couldn't I have been born to parents who stay together? Why couldn't I have existed and they stayed together? Like, why? Why is that?

Why is that the case? And John Paul II uses the book of Job to communicate our natural responses to that mystery. in Job, so Job, for those of you don't know, Job is the stand-up guy. He's awesome. He's successful at, he's one of the only biblical figures who's great at everything who's a male. He's a great dad, he's a great provider, he's a great leader, he's a great follower of God. He's great at all four, husband, father, provider, and follower of God. And...

You can't, other than St. Joseph, you literally can't find another person who fits that description other than Job. So Job is special, right? He's special. And he loses everything. His wife, his kids, his job, his health, his money, everything. And all of these people come to Job, who are so-called friends, and they're like, you must have done something wrong. You must have done something wrong. Like, God is just, you did something wrong, and now you're being punished. And Job is like,

Nope. Nope. No, I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't deserve this. And Job is the story of a good man who goes from having a dream life to literally the ultimate worst nightmare. And so our natural human tendency is either to just give in and just be like, well, there is no purpose to anything. Everything is random. Or to be like, I somehow deserve this or this is somehow punishment for my ancestors. And this plays out to today.

Like this is happening right now. ⁓ Friends of mine, like a friend of mine, when he got diagnosed with brain cancer when he was a kid, his parents were like, this is punishment for our infidelity. Like our minds need to fill the gap of uncertainty. I don't know why I'm suffering, so I fill in the gap of justice or there is no meaning. And so Job is like, neither of those are satisfying. I know that there's meaning because I've experienced love and I've experienced meaning through love. ⁓

I know that there's meaning. know that nihilism is nonsense. I also know I didn't do anything wrong. So then what's the answer? And so he asks God and he's like, I'm going to sit here and wait. And again, God doesn't come down and like condemn him. He's not like, how dare you ask me this question, you rascal. You're the worst. You unfaithful, terrible person. He says, where were you when I made the heavens and the earth? Which as Saint John Paul the second tells us that we can understand that as like God holds the mystery.

God holds space for the mysteries, like you're not gonna know. You are not going to know. And the answer that I could give you is going to be really unsatisfying for right now. And I'm never going to eliminate the mystery of why suffering exists. I'm only going to create a path to meaning for you. And we can know this too. One of the best examples of knowing this is miscarriage. A couple has a miscarriage and they lose their child and they're devastated and they're really sad. They're able to conceive again and they have another child.

That couple isn't like, thank goodness we lost the first child so we can have this second child, right? Like, they're literally sitting there being like, I wish I had both. And I'll never know why I couldn't meet this child, but I can meet this one. I'll never know this side of heaven. I will never know. And St. John Paul II says, Jesus, he doesn't come and take away the mystery of suffering. He comes and says, I'm here for love.

In order for love to be love, it must be free. And because it's free, people have to have the choice to do good or to do evil. So instead of taking away love, instead of giving you a deep understanding and a satisfying answer as to why the mystery of suffering remains, I'm going to just come and be with you in your pain. I'm going to make sure you're never alone. At a minimum, you're never alone. And as long as I'm with you, and as long as you're never alone, there will always, always be a path.

to draw meaning. so out of this St. John Paul II says, embrace and validate your own emotional experience. Don't explain it away. Don't run from it. Don't numb yourself to the mystery. And also don't give in to the feelings either. You're not your feelings. Your feelings don't determine what you must do. Instead, connect with the reality that you're not alone, acknowledge the pain, and then start walking the path to meaning.

Joey (36:32)

For countless teens and young adults, their parents' divorce is actually the most traumatic thing that they've experienced, but so many feel lost and alone in navigating the challenges. I've been there myself. It's really not easy and it shouldn't be this way. My book, It's Not Your Fault, guides them through those challenges by helping them put their pain into words and begin to heal, work through the emotional problems that they face, cope in healthy ways instead of falling into bad habits, improve their relationship with their parents, navigate the holidays and other life events, and build healthy relationships and so much more.

One Amazon review said this, this book is packed full of really practical help. If you come from a broken family, or even if you don't, but you love someone that does, this book is so helpful. I can't recommend this enough. By the way, it's a quick read and it doesn't need to be read cover to cover. Since it's in question and answer format, you can just read one of the questions and one of the answers. And so if you want to join the thousands of people who've gotten a copy, just go to restoredministry.com slash books.

to get the book or download the free chapters. Again, that's restored ministry.com slash books, or just click the link in the show notes. Love it. So deep. So good. Any other obstacles or do we cover all of them? Yeah.

Jack (37:40)

No, ⁓ there are other hard challenges that we could talk about like the forgiveness. Whenever you suffer, forgiveness comes into the equation and forgiveness is really hard as well. So suffering begets suffering in some ways and the need to forgive yourself and forgive God and forgive other people is really important. But those are the main obstacles to drawing meaning from suffering.

Joey (38:02)

Okay, could you go through the like titles of each just in case people are taking notes or want to hear them again? then- Sure.

Jack (38:09)

The main obstacles. Yeah. So, the meaning of your life. Like, what is the meaning of your life? Why are you here on earth? That's answering that question is the first obstacle. The second obstacle is acknowledging the weight of your own suffering. Sometimes, you know, people refer to this as defining the brutal reality, being willing to ask God why and okay with living in the mystery of not knowing why, but knowing that you're not alone and that there is a path forward.

Love it.

Joey (38:40)

I want to switch gears a little bit and ask the question, you know, what's the danger if we don't handle suffering well? We kind of alluded to it at the beginning, but I think sometimes, especially if we're not in the midst of suffering, we can have this kind of attitude of like, yeah, I'm good. Like maybe I'll kind of cross this bridge when I come to it, but I'm curious, like what's the danger if we don't handle suffering well?

Jack (39:02)

suffering will make you or it will break you. And that's just a phrase. So let's talk about it on actual terms. A friend of mine, he's older than me. He's significantly older than me. When he was 19, he was dating the girl that he thought that he was going to marry. And he found out that she was actually cheating on him. He's 19 years old, all American, star of the football team, hilarious, just, and really good person, right? Very attractive.

human being in general, not just he is good looking, but just like an attractive person. A lot of people were drawn to him. Find out that she's cheating on him, never enters into a serious relationship again for the rest of his life. He was defined. He let this person's choice and the pain that he felt and the suffering that he went through define the rest of his life and rob him of so many good things. A story that I heard many years ago of two men who were in Auschwitz together, two Jewish men who were in Auschwitz together. They hadn't seen each other.

There was 30 or 40 years they hadn't seen each other since they were liberated from the camps and they're surprised they're both giving like a 40 year anniversary talk and they're surprised that they're together. And so they see each other and they have this amazing embrace and they both share a little bit of a witness of what their friendship was like and how it helped them get through Auschwitz and things like that. All off the cuff, all really beautiful. They take Q &A at the end and someone raises their hand. like, have you forgiven the Nazis? And the first one stands up and says, no, and I never.

And the second man looks at him and goes, I'm so sorry for you, my friend, that after all these years, the Nazis still live rent free in your mind. They still have you imprisoned in your own mind. Yes, yes, son, I have forgiven them and I've forgiven them long ago. Right? Like that's the cost. Nobody looks at me and says like, there's the sick kid. Right? No one looks at you, Joe, and you're like, you're the child of divorce. You're the guy who never bounced back. You're not defined by that.

There are so many other things like just being in your presence and having gotten to know you a little bit since the first podcast and getting to spend some time with you. Like what I would define you as is like you're one of the best and sincerest listeners I've ever met in my life. That's what I think of when I think of Joey. know, like I'm like, it's beautiful. Like that's what you're defined by. You're not defined by this brokenness and that's at cost. That's what you're really missing in many ways.

Joey (41:21)

So good. No. And I think by everything you said, I would just echo and yeah, and just even in my own life, just it's kind of humbling what I hear you saying, especially in that story of the two men from Auschwitz, our lives can go different ways, right? We get to choose and we can't control what happens to us, but we can control what we do in response to it. And yeah, it's humbling for me even to think back of just a different path I could have taken.

and how my life would have looked totally differently. And I think at the core of so much of it is just like great mentors that I had who came alongside me and helped me deal with pain in life. And man, would my life, I would be in a very different spot without going into too much. would definitely not be married. I wouldn't have kids. I, yeah, would probably be living a pretty empty life, chasing pleasure, you know, maybe even, I don't even know, like maybe even not a free man. ⁓ But so I think it's amazing to think that this has such.

deep consequences. This isn't just some nice philosophical thing to think about. Like people we know are suffering every single day. We will suffer even if we haven't and how we handle it can again make or break you like you said. So good, I love this and I want to know more about your course. If you would tell us about it and you know what are you offering through it and what's the transformation especially that you want people to experience who go through it?

Jack (42:39)

Yeah, thank you. One last thing on that point of suffering that I forgot to mention. Nothing worth having in this life, like truly worth having in this life comes without suffering. Like you want a great marriage, it's going to be tough. You want to be an Olympic athlete, like are you wondering why after every final race there's people on their knees crying? Because of the tremendous suffering and the blood, sweat and tears they put into. You want to lose 20 pounds. ⁓

the food you're gonna have to eat, the workouts you're gonna have to do, it's not gonna be fun, it's not gonna be easy. You want mastery, ⁓ you wanna be masterful at something professionally. You have got to do it. If you wanna become a writer and write a book, well, you should probably write every day for years. It was pretty awesome, I'll share a little bit about it, because it'll come out soon. I just got word today that my first book is going to be published. And I'm super excited.

like, ⁓ great. Like, I've only known you in the last year. Like, you're a writer. I'm like, I have written, this is like my fifth book, and the first four were terrible. And I have written every single day for the last seven years, for at least an hour. You know, it's like, and it has sucked at times. And it's been terrible. you know, we often only see the end result. they're like, I would love to, you know, get published in a book. Right? Well,

Okay, if you want that, like you've got to go through suffering. So anything really worth achieving in life, you have to endure some pain to get there. And so that's what we forgotten. Anyway, so the course, the course is not actually for that piece. The course is for people who want to make the most of their suffering and they don't know how and they're looking for a path. They desire to make more out of their suffering. They just need a little bit of help and a little bit of support. So this is a five week experience.

It happens via email where on Mondays you receive a teaching from me. On Wednesdays I interview someone who personifies that teaching, who has gone through an experience of suffering and has emerged better from it. On Thursday I give you practicals. It's not just in theory teaching. It's not just the witness of a story, but I actually give you homework, things that you can do. And then on Sundays I actually connect to the lesson directly to a particular gospel passage. And we do that every week for

for five weeks and the content is really meaningful and really, powerful, especially the witnesses of other people. It's all in audio, so you can do it. You can listen to it while you're working out, while you're driving. It's really meant for stay at home mom or stay at home dad, slicing veggies, popping an earbud in the ear and listening to something that's gonna help them get through whatever it is, is right in front of them. The transformation for me is,

You go from stuck to free to make the most of your life. Stuck in a rut, stuck blocked by some sort of hidden obstacle that you can't get past, to free to make the most of your suffering. The course is called Rise. And this is really, for anyone who's, you know, will get value out of it if they've experienced suffering, but for the person who's on the ground right now, and they're like, I don't know how I'm gonna get up and start walking again, it was designed for you.

It's designed to teach you how to get up and start walking. So that years from now, you'll be able to look back and go. That was literally the best thing, the best decision I've ever made in my entire life is to deny my parts that want to wallow, to stand up and to walk the path forward.

Joey (46:15)

I love it. And how can people get it if they want to?

Jack (46:17)

If you go to the catholicmentor.com, first thing that'll pop up actually is one of those little pop up things. And it will be an invitation to download a free episode of the course. So you can get that there, or you can go to catholicmentor.com slash rise. And that has a way for you to sign up. It's only 20 bucks. I wanted to make it super accessible. It's tons of content, tons of information. And, you know, I was, I was told by chat GPT and other advisors like,

hey, you gotta sell this for 200 bucks, 250 bucks. I'm just like, this message is not gonna be contained by me. Anyone who needs it is gonna get it. This isn't about making money, this is about putting a dollar on it that will get you to listen to the first episode, otherwise accessible to pretty much anyone. You can forego a couple of cups of coffee to purchase this course and hopefully make the most of your life.

Joey (47:13)

Good stuff, man. Well, thank you for sharing about all that. I'm glad you were able to come back on the show. ⁓ If you could leave everyone with maybe one challenge or encouragement or piece of advice, what would you offer? Especially keeping in mind that the people listening right now come from families that are dysfunctional, divorced, and they may be carrying that suffering with them.

Jack (47:32)

You were born to do this. You were born to rise to the occasion of what's in front of you. You really were. You may not like that. That may not be exciting. That may not be ⁓ exactly what you want to hear. But you can do this. And even more than that, you were made to do this. And you were made to do hard things. Because if you don't do them, you will become a shell of who you could be. And more than anything in this world, I want you to be able to look back on your life and say, I rose to the occasion of.

I became who I was made to be and I became that through this thing. So don't be afraid, you were born to do this

Joey (48:10)

If Jack's course interests you, definitely encourage you to sign up for at least a free lesson just so can try it out. And like Jack said, the course itself is only $20. And for our listeners, he's actually offering a free 45-minute mentorship session with him for anyone who buys the course, but even for people who don't buy the course. And so you can find the link to that free mentorship session as well as to the course itself in the show notes. That wraps up this episode. If this podcast has helped you, feel free to subscribe or follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

You'll avoid missing future episodes and help us more people. If you've already done that, feel free to rate or review the show. We really appreciate that feedback and that also helps people find. In closing, always remember you are not doomed to repeat your family's dysfunction. You can break that cycle and build a better life. And we are here to help and keep in mind the words of CS Lewis who said, you can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending.