Suffering

Difficult emotions, at times, can be exactly what we need to experience in order to truly heal, grow, and get to the other side of our suffering with meaningful lessons learned. 

We fail at relationships, and then those failures propel us to more deeply understand what relationships are for, and how to master the art of loving. We grieve the loss of a loved one and then come through the experience more appreciative of every day we have with those we love. We lose a business and then look back at the loss as the education we obviously needed. We are betrayed and then experience the incredible power of forgiveness. We make mistakes and then experience mercy as we acknowledge, and make amends for them.

Each suffering is not transformed by avoiding it or by numbing it. If we are unaware of our pain, we cannot surrender it, and only pain surrendered is pain dissolved. It is transformed when we breathe it in fully, surrendering to the self-realization and letting enlightenment emerge from the darkness of our suffering. 

When we are sad, our task is to deal with the reason for the sadness, not just the sadness itself. 

The world will offer you many ways to numb your pain, to fuel your anger, and thus to deepen your despair. You can always find people to agree with you that you’ve been victimized. You can always find people to agree with you that a situation is hopeless, and it might honestly seem that way. All of us to some degree go through experiences about which we have every right to feel angry, victimized, or agonizingly hopeless.

Yet even then we have a choice. We can choose to feel it, instead of run away from it. We can choose to learn from it instead of pointing the finger at others. Only then can we choose to move forward with our lives, instead of remaining stuck in the suffering.