John’s Sunday Blog

SUFFERING

As we all know life is not always peaches and cream. It comes with bugs bites and stubbed toes. Without suffering there would be no depth to the joys of life. It would be a vague and numb life with no edge to guide it. Suffering is like a doorway to a strength of character that can last through the contrasts and changes of life. If you can embrace joy and sorrow alike you will live fully. This way one attunes to all human suffering as a whole. Helping one understand we are all in the same boat.

How to go about this? Many of us have trained ourselves to try to stay happy or numb to life most of the time. Trying to be joyful all the time will lead one into continuing dissatisfaction and disappointment. Instead, welcome suffering. When it comes, pull it close. It’s trying to tell you something. Sit with it for a moment and acknowledge it. It’s just showing you the polarities of this realm. Let it give you the message and it will leave on its own. If you push it away, it will just return again. At your darkest moments, know you are not alone. We all know this weight. And when we acknowledge it, compassion arises. For we will realize, young or old, rich or poor, all suffer. Suffering the jabs of life will no longer seem so personal, just a part of life. A rudder, so to speak, steering us through the winds and currents of our journey.

Break the chains of suffering by embracing it all. The depth of sorrow and the peaks of joy. Most times we can extend our suffering by its second blow; the one we do to ourselves. Say there is an event, a failure, it happens. But then there’s the mental echo of why that shouldn’t have happened and the shame one puts on themselves for it. Not necessary. Remember, everything here will ultimately fail because that creates the new!