One way to react to pain is to shut out what caused the pain.

If someone cheated you, why trust people again?

If a job has demotivated you, why commit to another job again?

If friends and family have abandoned you, why seek for human connection again?

The examples are somewhat trivial, but it is a pretty common and natural way to react to pain. We take our own experience, or our own repeated experiences, and we extend that to the full category – people, work, friends, family, love, connection, health – to protect ourselves from further pain.

The problem though is that when we do that we are never better off. We avoid pursuing something that matters to us in the name of safety and comfort. But pain is inevitable. It is part of us, it is part of living.

And so, another way to react to pain is to continue in your search. Give a chance to other people, other jobs, other friends, other family members, other partners, other peers, other solutions. And continue doing that until you have built enough resilience and strength that the search becomes more important than the outcome.