How To End Your Suffering.

Have you ever been down? I mean really down – to the point that you thought your suffering may never end? And all you could think about was how to end your suffering?

Why was that? Did you come up with an answer? Is it the result of something that happened to you, or is it the thoughts you have about it all that seem to keep the pain going……and growing!

What are we that has this emotional self that causes us so much pain?

Buddhism believes in four sufferings: Birth, Death, Sickness and Ageing – and that ALL sufferings can find a root in these. And if you consider mental illness (depression, addiction, psychosis et al) a sickness, and that the thought that your suffering may never end leads to a fear, then we can find ourselves stuck in pain and fear.

But do we really think of sickness, death or old age when we are young, confused and attempting to fill an emotional hole with food, drugs, disrespectful sex or self-harm? So, are we mainly left with fear? And I suppose it IS the case that all our addictive behaviours will ultimately shorten our lives – but in the grips of the suffering do we really think of anything more than either our high or our self-loathing, or does the fear that we’ll die or that the suffering will never end always lie there. Then of course, we could be stuck with the idea that our mental health has deteriorated to the point that we become resigned to the thought that only death will end our suffering – and that’s what we dwell on?

It’s pretty grim when you lay it all out…

Can We End Suffering?

Here is a little about the Buddhists interpretation around suffering. The Four Noble Truths are how suffering is considered, and the contingency plan. The First Noble Truth is that suffering exists. The Second Noble Truth determines the cause of suffering – primarily desire and ignorance. If you want what you haven’t got (material, sensual or immortality), and can’t see the world how it actually is you’ll suffer. The Third Noble Truth tells us of an end to suffering (either death or enlightenment), and the Fourth Noble Truth tells us the method for attaining the end of suffering, called by Buddhists the Noble Eightfold Path. The steps of the Noble Eightfold Path are Right Understanding, Right Thought, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration. Further to that, there are three themes into which the Path is divided: good moral conduct (Understanding, Thought, Speech); meditation and mental development (Action, Livelihood, Effort), and wisdom or insight (Mindfulness and Concentration).

So the Buddhists have spent a lot of time dealing with suffering…….but it feels so much easier said/written than done.

The Law Of Attraction

According to the Law of Attraction, we feel pain (‘contrast’ in their terms) when we are not aligned with who we really are (there are many sites that explain how to become aligned and I will touch on some techniques later). So, the emotional pain you are feeling is because you are not lined up with who you really are. Could it be that if I stop wanting to be better, happier and just accept how crap I feel but can ‘know’ that just like the tides go in and out, I will snap out of it if I start doing the things that make me feel good and strive to forget about feeling bad or even suicidal!

But do you need to know who you really are (the unaligned or misaligned one) in order to fix yourself?

More next post…