PUTTING AN END TO UNNECESSARY SUFFERING
What is "unnecessary" in "unnecessary suffering?" Shouldn't all suffering be unnecessary? This is the topic Peter Levine and I are exploring in our new book, Freedom From Pain: How Your Body Is Your Ally in Eliminating Unnecessary Suffering, which will be released early in 2012.
There are many experiences that create the suffering in life -- physical injuries, unemployment, relationship and marrital break-ups, deaths of people we love, abuse and neglect, illness and disease, and many other overwhelming events that rob us of our contentment, security, and happiness.
Our awareness of these events often add an unnecessary layer of suffering above the normal and natural suffering we feel -- that is, we can worry about worry; we suffer about suffering. And as time goes on, we can even worry about the fact that we're worrying about worry and suffer over the awareness that we're suffering about suffering.
Unnecessary suffering is self-generated. Our attitudes and beliefs heap additional burdens of suffering on us as we cope with the suffering that is a universal aspect of being alive.
In Buddhism, an important distinction is made between suffering and unnecessary suffering. According to the Buddha, when an ordinary person is touched by a feeling of pain, he or she "laments... becomes distraught... contracts so he feels two pains just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another... so that he would feel the pains of two arrows...."
As Peter Levine points out in his book, In An Unspoken Voice, which we're studying this month in our e-course, people reeling from the pain of trauma are so frightened of feeling their body sensations that they avoid them at all costs. It's as though they believe that if they feel them, they will be destroyed, or at the least, their suffering greatly magnified. By so doing they remain stuck because they cut themselves off from the very resources that could solve the problem. In this way, they shoot themselves with the second arrow -- the suffering about suffering.
Realizing that you might be doing this is not enough to stop it. In fact, sometimes the more you become aware of this shadowing of pain, the bigger it gets. In reality this is negativity that is being imagined rather than actually happening, and paradoxically, it's impossible to think your way out of what you thought your way into. This is a time when you have to act your way out of the unwanted surreality so that your mind can catch up. But how do we do this?
One place to start is to understand the difference between positive and negative emotions. Positive feelings like love, joy, pleasure, happiness and gratefulness serve the purpose of letting us know we are moving in the direction of wholeness and aliveness. On the other hand, the negative feelings of fear, jealousy, worry, insecurity, and frustration can be viewed as warnings to slow down and rethink our approach to something because we probably aren't moving in the right direction. Although not easy, we can train ourselves to use negative reactions to stop, evaluate the direction we're going in, and challenge ourselves to consider other ways of holding and viewing our negative emotions so that we return to flow and connection again.
A second strategy is to engage in a diligent search for the meaning of your suffering. Widening your relatively narrow field of understanding to include metaphysics, theology, philosophy, and even astronomy can help you to become more mindful of the purpose of the greater complexities of life and your part in them. This ongoing search for purpose and meaning can reduce what Carl Jung referred to as neurotic suffering, which refers to the idea of suffering without a reason.
When we experience emotional or physical pain, we believe that we should get rid of it. We repress it, bury it, deny it, or pretend it doesn't exist. Although it is certainly not necessary to "embrace your suffering" if that does not feel authentic at a particular stage of struggle, it might be helpful to view suffering as a teacher, as an essential way of connecting with our "bigger" selves.
It may also be healing to spend time thinking back over past painful episodes in your life that triggered profound personal change. How did each serve as a catalyst for important growth? How were you able to participate in that process? Maybe this kind of inventory can give you clues about how to resolve suffering in your current life. Consider journaling about these past experiences and your learning from them.
Finally, consider using a gratitude practice that is related to your body as well as to your mind. Before you go to sleep at night, try thanking each part of your body for the job it has done for you during the day. Practice this gratitude ritual for several nights in a row. How does it affect your experience of falling asleep? Awakening the next day?
For more information about this topic, see William Cottringer, author of the upcoming book, Reality Repair, Dr. Louis LaGrande at www.extraordinarygriefexperiences.com, and Tina Su at http://thinksimplenow.com/happiness/how-to-end-suffering.
Thanks so much for taking the time to read this newsletter!
May this month be a journey out of suffering for you and those you care about,
Maggie
On May 18-21 and 22-23 May, I am teaching a 6 day