On Suffering. Why we do it and how to stop
In life, pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.
In my notes, a word I frequently come across is “suffering”.
I find suffering difficult to comprehend.
Pain is useful.
Grief is cathartic.
But suffering is a useless emotion.
I wouldn’t even categorise it as an emotion. It’s a sticky by-product of faulty thinking.
We suffer more in imagination than in reality. We conjure up hypothetical scenarios and absurd “what ifs” that stop us from taking action. We do this to feel something familiar: inadequate and shame. Oh the comfort!
We create the poison and then we drink it. Are we masochists? In a perverted way, we suffer because we have self-induced our suffering.
(maybe because our life is too easy and we crave adversity and hardship?)
Why we suffer
Suffering is the result of how we perceive facts. How we perceive events happening to us, revolves around our beliefs. What we believe, besides external influences like family or media, is based on what we focus on. What we focus on, depends on the emotional state we’re in.
Like sunglasses, low emotional states dim our judgement and cloud our reality.
State
State in a nutshell is the quality of the emotions you have daily.
Ask yourself:
- Are you living mostly in a lousy or in a beautiful state?
- Is your life a gift or a struggle?
- Do bad things always happen to you? ALWAYS? (Really?)
How to improve your state
Most-to-least effective for me:
- Get physical. Do jumping jacks, go for a walk, squeeze hard something like a plushie. If you can, do exercise which elevates your heart rate.
- Meditate (I like Waking Up.)
- Do breath work (box breathing or try Wim Hof breathing.)
- Let it out. Healthy discharging feels good. Shout in a pillow as loud as you can. Punch your mattress. Cry. Expose your body to a warm or a cold shower.
- Take a break. Take the day off. Responsibilities can wait, put yourself first.
- Adopt the opposing view. Could the reverse of what I believe be true?
- Watch a comedy (if you like them.)
- Talk to someone.
In a beautiful state, you can start the (long) process of working on yourself. Grow out of your old worldview, your past self-judgements, and your self-imposed limitations.
You can’t control what happens to you but you can control how you respond.
How to stop suffering
- Decide you’re not going to suffer. Time yourself within one minute, get angry and let it out. Then transition by finding something to be grateful for.
- Some things to be grateful for: the smell of coffee, your ability to breathe, your vision, your hearing, your fingers, your teeth, the clothes you wear, access to electricity water and the internet, your family, your friends, your childhood, nature, the sun.
- Divert focus away from yourself towards something outside yourself: your partner, a child, a pet, a stranger, your mission, music, or nature.
- Change your state (see above how.)
- Give your suffering meaning. Why are you suffering? What’s your life’s story and why should you endure? (Read: “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl.)
“Today, most people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
— Viktor Frankl
Suffering is a signal you have to grow. To toughen up. To evolve.
Answer the challenge, raise to the expectation, and next time avoid falling in the pit of suffering.
Does this fit with your experience?
What other tips would you add?