#WiseWednesday

Pain is Inevitable - Suffering is Optional.  I am not certain why it is that I feel compelled to blog on this topic because let me tell you...this quote brought with it a lot of turmoil in my life when I last posted it. However, I am feeling drawn to writing about it again...so hold on 'cuz here we go.

Do you ever choose to suffer in your life?  I know that I do.  Often in fact.  And it doesn't feel very good to admit it here...but it is the truth.

How do I define suffering?  Well, suffering is me not choosing to move on from a situation.  For wanting to wallow around in the pain of it.  Telling myself that it is something that I need to be doing.  Would you like an example?  Here is a recent one...I have been developing a product.  This includes filming some videos.  The topic is surrounding self doubt and self sabotage.  I have never made these videos before and I keep getting trapped in my own cycle of self doubt.  Technological issues really trip me up.  If it is not incredibly basic I will spin around and around, not moving forward because I will never figure it out.  Then...I start to beat myself up.  I tell myself I was stupid for even trying, it is never going to work. What a failure.  And then I topped it with what my BFF and I call "suffering gravy".  This is where I bemoan the fact that it didn't turn out.  And allow this to stop me from moving forward onto a new project.  Unwilling to see what good came from the previous attempts, what silver linings were present, what new learnings revealed themselves.  I sit in this place and I fester here until the pain of sitting in it outweighs the fear of change.  This can take seconds, minutes, days, weeks, months or even years.  It all depends on where the suffering stems from.

My mind is great at picking up old episodes of suffering off the shelf, dusting them off and replaying them like they are new releases.  The pain of that past moment does not need to exist in my present moment.  The only reason it shows up is because I have brought it here with me.  If I wanted to...I could let it go.  I could return the suffering to the shelf and allow myself to be present in this moment...a place where the past and future do not exist.

This can sound like I am just being over simplistic and perhaps even uncaring to whatever situation you may have faced or been facing but that is not true.  I make it a practice in my life to love people (and myself) because of their past and inspite of their past.  It is those experiences that have moulded and shaped you to become this beautiful being that you are in this moment.

The wisdom that I want to share with myself and anyone reading this is that we need not suffer.  We can leave the suffering of years and even seconds ago in the past where it belongs.  All we need to do in order to do that is to let go.  Connect with your breath.  Breathe in deep into your belly.  Follow your breath in through your nose, nasal passages, throat, chest, lungs and into your belly.  Witness it there.  Then watch as it leaves the belly travelling up into the lungs and chest, into your throat and mouth and nasal passages out into the world.  Let it go.  Listen to the sounds around you.  See if you can feel a breeze blowing gently across your skin.  Check in with your body and ask what it needs to feel freedom, joy and love.  Repeat this as many times as necessary.  I think that you will find you are no longer swimming in suffering gravy.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this blog post.  So please feel free to comment or email me.

Wishing you a day as Beautiful as you.

Much Love,
Lisa

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