How Voluntary Hardship Builds Resilience
By Jamie Bussin, featuring Rafael Hidalgo
According to ultra runner and author Rafael Hidalgo, resilience is built when people voluntarily choose difficult challenges that align with a meaningful purpose. He posits that “pain with purpose” differs fundamentally from suffering because purpose gives pain meaning, direction, and the power to transform a person.
I discussed Rafael’s journey of self-discovery on Episode #439 of The Tonic Talk Show/Podcast. This article is a digest of that conversation.
Why Did Rafael Run an Ultra Marathon?
As Rafael explains, in the middle of COVID-19, when he and his family were in lockdown, he spontaneously decided to run an ultra marathon to inspire his two daughters.
An ultra marathon is any race longer than a standard marathon of 26.2 miles. The race he chose was the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc, which he describes as the most epic trail he knew of—a course with cumulative elevation gain exceeding the height of Mount Everest. In his words, it was a “crazy challenge.”
Rafael’s rationale was simple:
“I thought, well, why not show my daughters that effort pays off if we work hard? I worked for about three years to prepare for this 100-mile race.”
What Did Rafael Learn from the Experience?
While it may seem self-evident, Rafael’s biggest takeaway from running the ultra marathon is that we are capable of far more than we think when we are pursuing a dream that genuinely inspires and resonates with us.
He believes that our “real selves” remain hidden because modern life is comfortable. We rarely discover who we truly are until we face a profoundly difficult situation. During the ultra marathon, he confronted the worst aspects of himself and had to dig deep to find the person hidden beneath his perceived limitations.
Rafael describes the turning point:
“When you’re 24 hours into a race, you’re aching all over, and I was about to give up. I was 15 minutes behind the cut-off, which meant that if I didn’t leave the aid station in time, I would have been eliminated from the race. A volunteer told me, ‘You can still make it if you go now.’ Then, all of a sudden, an energy that I didn’t know I had in me emerged. It evaporated the sleep deprivation, quieted the pain, and I was able to carry on, pass 700 runners, and finish the race.”
What’s the Difference Between Pain With Purpose and Suffering?
Hidalgo defines pain with purpose as the discomfort that comes from pursuing a meaningful goal, such as training for and completing a gruelling ultra marathon. While the experience may be physically or emotionally painful, it remains connected to a motivating purpose.
Suffering, by contrast, occurs when pain exists without meaning, direction, or a motivating goal.
He explains:
“Purpose is what really resonates in you and infuses you with enthusiasm and the energy to overcome the pain that comes through the effort of voluntarily following a very difficult path.”
For Rafael, the distinction is clear:
“When you’re following what resonates in you, meaning materializes. When pain has no purpose behind it, it becomes suffering.”
Pain With Purpose Leads to Resilience
Voluntarily taking on something difficult and experiencing pain along the way builds resilience that can be transferred to other areas of life.
After the race, Rafael faced a series of significant challenges: the loss of his father, the loss of his brother, a serious injury that required surgery, and redundancy from his job. Yet he did not view these experiences as suffering. Instead, he felt equipped to cope with them.
Rafael describes those post-race challenges from a spiritual perspective:
“I didn’t let it become suffering because something else was pulling me forward, infusing me with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm comes from the Greek word entheos, meaning ‘the god within.’ It ties back to the divine elements of such experiences.”
The Three Layers of Resilience
Rafael describes resilience as operating through three interconnected layers:
- The body
- The mind
- The soul
He argues that:
- The body can become exhausted.
- The mind can give up.
- Something deeper can still continue.
The Mental and Spiritual Aspects of Resilience
According to Rafael, there is a mechanical aspect to resilience that resides in the mind.
He explains:
“You have to grind through the work and repeat, repeat, repeat. Science has shown that this repetition of discipline grows part of the brain, and you’re able to sustain difficult things better than someone who doesn’t train it.”
But he also believes resilience has a spiritual dimension that functions almost like muscle memory.
“At some point, the mind may give up as well. In the race, my mind was telling me, ‘Give up, you’re dying.’ That’s when something else takes over, and that’s when it becomes much more spiritual. Doing something seemingly impossible and overcoming it at least once enables you to remember that experience later when you face another difficult moment.”
What Does Rafael’s Journey Mean?
Rafael Hidalgo’s central message is that resilience is not built through comfort but through purposeful challenge. By voluntarily embracing difficult pursuits that align with deeply held values, people develop strength that later helps them navigate life’s unavoidable hardships.
In his view, pain becomes transformative when it serves a purpose, and resilience emerges when people discover they are capable of more than they once believed.
