"You have to accept pain as a condition of existence." ~ Morris West
That may sound counterintuitive, but this year I want to let go and try to avoid suffering.
This does not mean that I am a masochist and plan to spend the next year unhappily. Rather, it is about learning to accept life as it is – uncertain, full of surprises and with its whole host of difficult circumstances.
Our wish for happiness
The thing is that we all want to be happy. There is nothing wrong with that, but if we are afraid of not being happy, we have already undermined ourselves. We focus so much on the hunt for things that we are happy to have forgotten the whole thing.
Parents tend to raise their children and tell them to be happy. We are surrounded by advertising images of what a happy life looks like. When we feel depressed and unhappy, we tend to feel like we're letting people down, that we're failing in some way. Nobody wants to feel like a failure, so we're rethinking our strategies to avoid suffering.
Our Strategies to Avoid Suffering
We are concerned so that we do not have time to think. There are a million ways to entertain and distract yourself. If we get bored, we can surf on social media. When we feel depressed, we can go shopping, watch a movie, have a bite to eat – whatever our preferred escape route is.
When suffering overcomes distraction and forces us to pay attention, our avoidance goes deeper. We push it away. We pretend that it is not there. Suffering becomes the enemy of happiness and must be avoided as soon as possible.
If avoidance no longer works and suffering looks us in the face, we will try to fix it as soon as possible. We're talking about leaving things behind and going on. We rarely give ourselves the time to lean into our pain, to find out what it shows us and to act accordingly.
Pain is inevitable
The nature of life is that we don't know what will happen from one moment to the next. Everything is in motion, no matter how hard we try to hold on and organize things. Our bodies can be damaged. We get older, get sick and eventually die. People change, relationships blossom and then disappear.
Look into every aspect of your life and see how it moves and changes constantly. Think back to the changes that have taken place in your church at the time you lived there. Think back – fifty years, a hundred years – small changes, big upheavals happen all the time.
In the midst of it all, we are hurt. Loss, disappointment, broken heart, worries and fears are part of the package. Although we are happy and do not want to feel pain and suffering, we know deep down that this is inevitable. Suffering is part of life, however much we don't want it, and it happens to everyone.
My Memories of Changing My Habit
This is the basis for changing my habit of avoiding suffering. I want to remind you that it's just part of what life is like. It is not a conspiracy against me. Everyone has problems and worries. In this regard, we are all in the same boat.
If I spend a lot of time thinking about how things can go wrong or how a situation can get worse, then I'm already unhappy. What I'm worried might not even happen. In fact, I could be worried, and in the meantime, another unforeseen problem creeps in.
Like many people, I want my life to count for something. I want it to make sense. To be honest, much of my deepest learning has gone through times when things are difficult and I have difficulties.
When we try to master challenges, we can be motivated to really look deeply into ourselves. Our avoidance methods don't get us anywhere, so we're trying to understand what's going on. If we can, suffering and pain can be our greatest teachers.
If we are tired of everything, we can at least try to find a place in us for acceptance. Instead of crying, "Why me?", We just accept that this is happening and we can only work with it.
Personally, I find this kind of patience very difficult, but I am a meditator and can create a certain distance between a situation and my reaction to it. When it works, it brings such relief. It is so much more nutritious than fighting things and hiding.
After all, perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of suffering is the appreciation we gain for other people's things. Just as we suffer, they suffer too.
If I have trouble making arrangements with a friend who is getting farther and farther away, there is a possibility that there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of other people who are going through something similar at the same time. Compassion grows with acceptance and patience, which can become part of our deeper learning.
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