As psychotherapist and researcher Pilar Sordo explains, pain is nothing more than a stretch of difficult terrain we must pass through in order to reach the elusive path to happiness. Acceptance, gratitude, and mindfulness are the qualities that permit us to admit pain into daily life and understand it as a necessary obstacle of well-being. If we can understand pain as a sort of travel companion, Sordo argues, we will be fully open to the richness and complexity of our life s trajectory."