How I Am Learning to Suffer Less
2 steps to embodying freedom
“Anything you can’t control is teaching you how to let go.”
– Jackson Kiddard, philosopher
Babies grow into teenagers.
Summer turns into fall.
Our youthful skin wrinkles.
Friendships change.
Parents age and die.
I am tearing up as I type, this is not comfortable stuff. Our natural instinct is to attach, to grasp, to want the sweet things in life to last.
Alas, the natural order of human existence is change. In fact, one of my favorite sayings, only because it brings me back to reality:
the only constant is change.
A few of my personal current reminders of how little control I have are:
Walking alongside my mom in her last season of life.
Losing my mother-in-love quickly to cancer two years ago.
Dropping my oldest son off at college last fall.
What is coming up for you?
There is no stopping change. And even when we try, we find unrest in our heart, constriction in our minds, and tightness in our bodies. How does it show up for you in this place of your beingness as Dr. Hillary McBride calls it? Tense shoulders? Headaches? Clenching your jaw?
Franciscan priest Richard Rohr’s simple definition of suffering:
whenever we are not in control.
What if the road to living free begins by being open to less grip to an outcome, a person, a circumstance? What if detaching from a misaligned belief that control is possible is where we truly find ease and rest?
Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. — Thich Nhat Hanh
2 Steps to Embodying Freedom
Center and settle your whole system with a few full breaths, in the nose and out the nose or mouth. Maybe a sigh naturally wants to happen, let it, it’s a wonderful way to send the message to your whole being that you are choosing to land in the moment.
Then consider, what does freedom mean to you?
Less suffering, struggle, or anxiety?
And if you envision living into this freedom, what does it feel like in your body?
Perhaps a lightness in your center, a softening in your neck and jaw, or a renewed level of rest in your body.
Give yourself two to three breaths to savor that sensation, really embedding it in at a cellular level. Neuroscience tells us that when we linger in a sensory experience it deepens our neural-grooves to live more into that direction.
Here is the beautiful truth, the more you can feel this releasing of control and stepping into freedom at your core, your entire system begins to sense it as a way of life.
Over the years, this embodying practice has been a guiding light for me to moving closer to freedom and further from suffering. While I still have a ways to go, every step forward is in the direction I desire to go.
Leave any new discoveries in the comments below, I am listening!
