I have been in the middle of another curve ball the universe has thrown at me. A breakdown of who I am as a human. I don’t feel like I am thriving right now, or that everything is going to work out.
I am currently fighting off the pain of reality and pushing back hard. I wish it would all go away. I feel broken.
But guess what? What I have learned in this life is that everything is happening is a coming together of wisdom, love, understanding, empathy, and a stronger version of myself.
Pain and pleasure is an inevitable part of life.
Humans will experience both pain and pleasure; but suffering is psychological and requires a sense of self. In other words suffering requires a sufferer. Suffering is the result of the mind and it’s visceral reaction to pain. It is a result of our conditioned response to pain.
Yes, this conditioning is deep as fuck. It is hard to change these thoughts. I am in the thick of it as we speak and can attest to the difficulty. I want to sit here and give up. Tap out of life. It’s been a bumpy road for me since the day I was born and most other humans would understand. But fuck that nonsense. I know deep down this is par the course of life and I need to do some serious reframing here.
So how do we experience pain without suffering?
Suffering is caused by craving. The craving for pleasure or the craving for the elimination of pain. It is caused by the minds resistance to pain. If there is great resistance of what is, even the most tiny amount of pain will cause great suffering. Without craving or resistance there is no suffering. Pain without resistance is just pain.
Nothing more — nothing less.
With that said suffering is inevitable in this life my friends. Not optional. Suffering is not necessary; but it takes a lot of suffering to realize this simple fact.
Meaning I have to check myself often, and remind myself that I wouldn’t know that this brokenness can be fixed through acceptance of what is, if I hadn’t been broken before.
We break so we can become who we are meant to be over and over until the day we die.
So when I am resisting reality and pushing pain away — I stop, just for a second, and remind myself that maybe there is a greater plan in all of this. Perhaps one day I will look back at this and see that it was necessary.
I know I have had these life shattering experiences prior. I am who I am because of what has happened in my life. Without all that pain I wouldn’t be me. And I am eternally grateful for everything. Sincerely.
What is currently happening is what I needed to break every last wall I had up. I am confident that the escape from my old life was in the complete and utter shattering of the false constructs I had developed in my mind. The ones I was vehemently building for years in order to protect myself.
It is scary as fuck to break.
To free fall.
To die while you are living.
So while some intense shit is going to happen to all of us in our lifetimes — it is necessary to remind ourselves that the goal is to get to a place where we look at these experiences with the knowing that this is what we need at this moment.
No matter how big of a middle finger the universe is giving you. The suffering is all in your mind. You create it due to resistance to the inevitable pain that is necessary for growth. Built not broke baby.
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