We can see that there is a kind of sacrifice to be made for the essential life, and this sacrifice, this putting the truth before everything else, can involve a certain suffering. This is another connection between nobility and suffering. Yet what is really going on is that suffering is being exposed. Nobility involves forbearance for the truth. In the Work, people sometimes go through intense pain and suffering, exposing the lies of the personality and seeing the truth of the suffering that is already there. It is not that suffering is noble in itself or valuable to the Work as such. We suffer because we are not in touch with ourselves; often we are not even in touch with our suffering. We can see our suffering as noble if it is part of our movement toward our essential selves, toward the truth. Nobility is valuing the truth even if it includes suffering, valuing the truth over the distractions and external values we try to substitute for Essence. Thus nobility might involve a kind of suffering, but when you move toward the truth, the fulfillment and joy of Essence make you see that what you valued before was nothing. – Diamond Heart Book One: Elements of the Real in Man, Ch. 5