Holidays are usually associated with happy memories, but sometimes the holidays can make one reflective, lonely, and even depressed. Regardless whether that is you or not, I find myself at this time of year often thinking about people needlessly suffering, and steps one can take to end it.
Pain comes from events, such as the fall down the stairs I recently had that resulted in a broken wrist and ankle. While suffering comes from the way we handle events; what we do and especially what we think about them.
To end our own psychological suffering we must first become the observers of our suffering, instead of drowning in it. Get curious and examine what is going on carefully. Second, we must question each belief that traps us in misery until we figure out where it diverts us from our sense of truth. Are you sure it is true? In what ways can you find a speck of proof that it is not true? Step three is moving on.
Suffering stems from believing things that aren’t true. These are lies of our cultural upbringing so deeply entrenched we don’t even realize they exist. Sometimes moving abroad to a completely different culture reveals those belief trenches, although we usually believe so strongly that we are in the right, and our host culture has just gotten it wrong.
Many inexplicable feelings of depression, rage, and anxiety are actually reactions to hidden false beliefs.
When we believe a lie we’ve been trained to accept, the result is often a tendency to self-sabotage.
Doing things that so blatantly contradict our own intentions is a sign that somewhere inside us, a civil war is in progress. Using willpower to overcome self-sabotage doesn’t work. It can’t stop the pain driving the self-sabotage, which is really an unrecognized split in our belief system.
Use self-sabotage as a signal of a belief that’s hurting us.
Once you’ve observed the beliefs that caused your self-sabotage, the next step is to question them. First ask, “Is that thought true?” Then, “Can you absolutely know that thought is true?”