The Cure for Suffering.

Think of the ways you might be suffering right now. Write them down. Ask yourself how uncomfortable you are today in this suffering. What are you missing? Unless you are currently sick, injured, tortured, abused, starved, imprisoned or you are homeless, you are mostly suffering in your thoughts and emotions. It is important to understand the differences. For now, I am going to focus on these types of thoughts and emotions; the sort of suffering that is anxiety, depression, feelings of loneliness, worthiness, lack of meaning, boredom, lack of motivation or will, lethargy etc. all of the day to day to emotions that we may feel that can get overwhelming at times or all consuming enough to stop from us from takng actiona or making otherrwise, good choices to get us out of these emotinal mindsets.

Some examples…

I feel stressed because I feel financially unstable or like I am not earning enough.

I feel anxious because my intimate relationship is not exactly as I want.

I feel unmotivated because I don’t like my job for various reasons.

I feel a void because I don’t feel a sense of happiness, contentment or joy in my life.

Now turn off those thoughts and emotions for a minute. Clear your mind and take a few deep breaths. Seriously stop reading this and take in 5 deep breaths slowly. Seriously, don’t read further until you do it.

Now what happens?

How do you feel?

Was there suffering in those moments?

Probably not.

Why?

Because you were focused on something else.

If you were focused on counting your breath and breathing so you had no time to suffer.

Get it??

Now think about expanding that to an hour or 5 or the entire day.

What would that look like? Well, for me it looks like giving myself a set of task to complete according to my big vision of my future and focusing on them and nothing else..and then rewarding myself with an enjoyable activity. During those tasks, I try to focus on doing them the best I can and that’s it.
If I start to get emotional, distracted or really pissed off..which I am today because I have sea urchin spikes in my foot, then I need to do a lot of 5-count breathing.

Anyway, This is what your life could be in most moments….if you have a vision for your life and a list of goals.

The other way to look at it is that when you take action, you forget about the “mental/emotional” suffering because you are suffering in doing the tasks you have laid out for yourself. And in doing these tasks you actively working to reduce your suffering; this is good suffering.

Below are the basics broken down.

Don’t think about the suffering, think about how you are taking action. Focus only on the tasks at hand.

Let out the suffering energy into the actions and let it turn into that feeling of relief and satisfaction at doing the real work for yourself.

Do the work and enjoy it.

You needed to do it.

Know that this work is good for you.

Reward yourself for doing it even if that reward is your own “pat on the back.”

This is the heroic life.

A very, smart psychologist once said “The suffering that comes from useful work and from victory over real difficulties…give the human being the priceless feeling that he has really lived his life.” — Carl Jung