There are seasons when life simply hurts. A diagnosis nobody expected. A child who is struggling. A long wait for a shidduch, for a baby, or for parnassah that doesn’t come. No one should be told that these things are easy, or that a woman with real emunah wouldn’t feel them.

And yet, if we listen closely to our hearts in those moments, we often find two things tangled together. There is the pain itself. And wrapped around it, there is something heavier: a voice that says it will always be this way, that something must be wrong with me, that Hashem has turned away. Torah-based emotional growth gently helps us tell the two apart.

Pain Is Real, and the Torah Never Asks Us to Deny It

Chava calls the first layer “pure pain.” It is the hurt of what actually happened, before we add anything to it. It is like a fresh wound: raw, undeniable, a fact and not a matter of opinion. The loss of someone we love, loneliness, illness, the years of waiting for a child. Even a cold remark from someone close, or a lack of appreciation from the people we give to most, can be pure pain.

The Torah does not ask us to smile through this. When Chana stood in the Mishkan, she was “bitter of soul” and wept as she prayed (Shmuel I 1:10). Her tears were not a failure of faith; they became one of the most powerful tefillos in our history. And the navi tells us that Hashem is not distant from our pain: “In all their affliction, He was afflicted” (Yeshayahu 63:9). He feels it with us, and more deeply than we do.

The Layer We Add on Top

The second layer is what grows around the pain. It is made of interpretations and conclusions, and they often arrive so quickly that they feel like facts. “It’s always me.” “Nobody really sees me.” “I must be being punished.” “Hashem doesn’t care what happens to me.”

This layer is what Chava calls self-created suffering. That word isn’t a judgment, since none of us chooses these stories on purpose. Many of them were formed long ago, in moments when we had no one to help us understand what was happening. But they magnify the hurt. A painful situation becomes proof of something much bigger and much darker. Numbness adds weight too: pain we never allowed ourselves to feel doesn’t leave. It settles inside and quietly colors everything.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov teaches that sorrow and suffering come “only from a lack of da’as” (Likutei Moharan 250): from losing sight of the truth that everything is under the loving hashgacha of Hashem. Notice what he does not say. He doesn’t say that pain disappears. Pain remains pain. What can soften is the suffering we have layered on top of it.

The Oldest Story: “Because Hashem Hates Us”

Our history holds a painful example of how much a story can weigh. After the spies returned, the people cried all night and said, “Because Hashem hated us, He took us out of Egypt” (Devarim 1:27). Rashi explains what was really happening: “He loved you, but you hated Him.” They took what was inside their own hearts and placed it onto Hashem.

The challenge in front of them was real. The giants in the land were real. But it was the interpretation, the belief that Hashem’s intentions were unkind, that turned one night of fear into tears that echo every Tisha B’Av. Most of us carry smaller versions of the same story, and we rarely notice that it is a story at all.

When the Story Changes, the World Changes

Rav Shlomo Wolbe writes in Alei Shur that a person who doesn’t feel Hashem’s guidance “lives as a stranger in a cruel world,” while someone who recognizes it finds herself “in a world of companionship.” The outer circumstances may be exactly the same. The woman living them can be in a completely different inner place.

This is not about forcing positive thoughts or rushing past what hurts. In fact, it works the other way around. The pain needs to be honored first, given space and words and a listening ear. Only then can the heavier story begin to loosen. As the interpretation changes, our reactions and even our relationships tend to change on their own, without being forced.

You Don’t Have to Untangle It Alone

It is very hard to see our own stories from the inside. They sound like the truth because we have heard them in our own voice for so long. This is where a guide can help. Chava listens to the pain without hurrying it along, and walks with a woman as she gently discovers which parts are the hurt itself and which parts are the heavy story she has been carrying.

Hashem promised Yaakov Avinu before he went down to Egypt, “I will go down with you” (Bereishis 46:4). Good guidance has something of that promise in it: no one is sent into the hard places alone, and the direction is always back up toward the light. Chava’s approach is built on this trust.

New to this path? You may want to start with our first article, What Is Torah-Based Emotional Growth?

Where to Begin

If this speaks to you, our WhatsApp community is a warm, quiet place to keep learning, with short thoughts and encouragement from Chava. And for women who feel ready to go deeper, the Chiburim course opens November 16: a guided journey of connection to yourself, to the people you love and to Hashem.

A gentle note: this article is for learning and inspiration, and it isn’t a substitute for professional help. If you are in crisis or in any danger, please reach out right away to your local emergency services or to a trusted professional.

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