013 How to Suffer Less

Hello friends,

For the last few weeks I’ve been focusing on suffering as a catalyst for healing. And I’ve been leaning on the natural world, highlighting amazing ways that plants and ecosystems turn their own challenges into vibrancy and resilience.

If you’d like to read these past emails, you can find them here (#011 and #012)

Today, I’m completing this series with help from my friend Snow-in-Summer.

Cerastium tomentosum (Snow in Summer)

A ground cover native to alpine Europe that has proven adaptable to a stunning range of locales worldwide. It is equally at home in Southern California and the upper Canadian prairie where temperatures dip as low as -50F!!

However, it has strict, basic requirements of poor, well drained soil, and low humidity. That means Snow-in-Summer does best in conditions many other plants find intolerable.

This plant reminds me that being adaptable, questioning basic assumptions about who I am and what I need, is what fuels my own healing.

And, like the plant, my adaptability is based on its own strict requirement: a complete commitment to my intuition, which keeps me safe, provides strong boundaries, and guides my healing.

How to Suffer Less

I’ve been carrying on about suffering for a while now. That’s not by accident. Nothing motivates us to heal and pursue the spiritual path quite like our own pain.

And, harnessed correctly, it’s the most powerful resource we have for personal and collective growth.

I spent the last two weeks covering these ideas in detail – why suffering has incredible value and what happens when we learn to harness that value.

Take a look back if you missed them or you’d like a refresher.

Today I want to talk about what brings us to the healing journey in the first place: How to suffer less.

That, of course, is a huuuuge topic – especially if you consider that we all have our own unique situation. Thankfully there are some universal truths in this game. Here’s the big one for today:

Suffering and the release from suffering arise from the same source: Our discomfort.

Not very sexy, I'll admit, but it’s the key to what we’re seeking. Let me explain.

Much of what we think of as suffering is not suffering at all – it’s discomfort. Physical pain, grief, fear, anger, anxiety, sickness, stress, being too hot/cold, etc are all forms of discomfort.

Suffering is entirely separate. It’s an additional layer that we reflexively but unnecessarily add-on. I’m talking about the stories we create about our discomfort. The judgements, interpretations, and the assigning of blame.

This is a perplexing idea for a lot of people. That’s because we’ve been adding a mental story to our experiences for so long, so much of the time, that we’ve lost our ability to distinguish between the two.

Know Thy Suffering, Know Thy Self

When you stub your toe, you feel pain. That’s bad right?

Strictly speaking, no. It’s not good or bad – it’s just pain. And pain, whether physical or emotional, has no inherent meaning. It’s simply an experience, arising and eventually receding like all other experiences.

Yes, discomfort stinks. In many cases we should take steps to avoid it, particularly when it’s a matter of safety. However, my point here is that stubbing a toe doesn’t create suffering on its own.

The mental story we attach to the stubbed toe creates suffering.

It’s in this story that we decide we don’t like the pain. It’s where we blame ourselves, others, or the door frame. If anger arises from the pain, the story determines what we do with that anger. We may act out towards an external perpetrator or turn it inwards as self-loathing.

We have confused the thoughts in our head for reality.

This is suffering.

And here’s the kicker: Our story, which initially ran on pain and anger, begins to fuel itself. That means our suffering continues even when the physical pain in our toe is long gone. This is especially true if we’ve dragged someone else into the situation.

The Way Out is In

So what’s the alternative? How can we experience physical pain and anger without creating unnecessary suffering?

By giving our complete attention to our feelings of pain and anger.

Physical and emotional pain are located in the body. They have a relationship to mind activity but they are not of the mind.

So, when we focus on feelings, we draw our attention away from the mind. This prevents a story from being created. If one sneaks in, we refocus on the body to stop it in its tracks.

And if there's no story, the discomfort will simply express itself and recede.

** Check out this email for a guided meditation that works with this principle **

Of course, this whole thing takes practice because we’ve done things one way our whole life. Not only that, our ego is fully invested in the stories, the suffering, the reactivity, etc.

But as we learn to give our attention to our feelings, they become less frightening, mysterious, and persistent. Not only does our suffering decrease, our experience of physical and emotional pain decreases as well.

Ok, that’s it! If you hung in until the end, thank you. If you liked these last few emails, let me know by hitting reply.

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See you next week!
Energetically,
David