~ Silver Lining
If we don't go to extremes, it can be fun to discover what we love about what we hate.
Byron Katie encourages us to think of one of our most difficult situations and then to think of 3 or 5 or 10 reasons our life is better because of that same situation. She interviews a dyslexic man and finds out that he feels ashamed not to be able to write a check at the grocery store, but he also has a thriving business and has other people read boring articles and summarize them for him. Then he is free to use the most pertinent information as he feels fit.
So Byron Katie really means that we will find specific ways our lives are enriched by our difficulties, and not just the fact that we can have more compassion for others in difficulties.
Meanwhile, along the way, if we rub up against the deep seed of dependence on difficulty--the sense of solidity and ground we get from being a person with a problem--we may feel that half-conscious impulse to suffer unnecessarily start to drop away.
Love,
Jaya