Suffering brings your heart to bear. It gets you where you are!
My guru said that when he suffers, it brings him closer to God. I have found this, too.
You give up not meditating. It's called meditation action. There's no way out of it. Meditation means to be constantly extricating yourself from the clinging of mind.
Those particular thoughts that are painful - love them. I love them to death!
True compassion arises out of the plane of consciousness where I AM you.
The witness is always in the here and now and it lives in each instant of living. To be in the witness is to listen with a still heart, with a waiting, open soul, without clinging, without opinions.