Suffer no more

healing lotus ~ sodahead.com

Last night as I was slicing a mango, it slipped and I ended up slicing my finger open with the paring knife. I quickly cleaned the cut and placed a bandage and continued on, not giving the cut another thought. It almost immediately began to heal as the bloodflow subsided and thereafter stopped altogether. I did not have to do anything on a conscious level, my internal system took over right away and I know that in a few days that cut will be fully repaired and I will barely remember that it happened. For most of us that is how our body works, we have an internal system which launches itself into repair mode without us really experiencing hassle over it. I could choose to be conscious of the cut and worry about it, keep checking and messing with it which would ultimately interrupt its natural ability to heal and may even create an infection which if I kept on prying and interrupting the natural heal. Worse still, the disruption could lead to gangrene and possibly amputation of my finger. That would be crazy right? Why would I keep re-opening the wound and creating an environment where it could not heal? Why would I create suffering for myself? Weird thought and actions, right?

Applying the same logic to dealing with the emotional aspect of living life; most people would never intentionally create a situation where they would suffer or cause more damage to themselves. One would think so, however we do create suffering in our monkey mind with our thoughts and many people do it as a normal course of their day.

In life stuff happens!

Things don’t always go as we would like them to go. We fail in our business and have to accept working for others to stay afloat; we don’t have enough money to buy that special item that our loved-one so desperately yearns for his/her birthday; our significant other tells us that they need space and time to figure things out; we find out that we have an ailment that is going to significantly impact our life; someone close to us leaves us unexpectedly in a accident or because they took there own life; etc. These are examples of events that happen in our life that can cause severe emotional wounds. Just as a physical wound needs to heal so does an emotional wound. How and when our emotional wounds heal is very much up to us and what we say to ourselves when stuff happens.

Will we choose to suffer or choose to heal?
Will are inner voice go into hyper worry mode and create more angst for us?
Will we, through our thoughts continuously pick at our wound and keep re-opening the wound to the point where it can’t heal?
Will we open up the wound every chance we get to show it to others and perpetuate our suffering as well as add to theirs?
Will we take on the role of the victim and create a state of depression because of what we say and do to ourselves?
Will we parade our suffering like a badge of honour, cry for the attention-seeking help but yet refuse to get or take the help of others, or worse still, hurt others by bringing them as partners into our whirlpool of suffering?
Will we get to a point where we are defined by our suffering?
(my apologies for the barrage of questions, especially since the cheery weekend's looming!)

“It isn’t what happens to us that causes us to suffer; it’s what we say to ourselves about what happens”
– Pema Chodron  (a Buddhist Nun)

Pain and hurt are unavoidable, it just happens. I don’t know anyone who has not been hurt emotionally or not known some form of emotional pain along their life journey. That being said, I do know many people who choose positive living and not to suffer because of what has transpired in their life and I also know other people who choose to suffer and to not allow their wounds to heal. The difference is thought, the difference is how we talk and reason to ourselves about the wounds that we incur. The question is, do our thoughts aid in the healing of our wounds or do they cause the wounds to remain open and fester to the point where the wound infects our whole being.

This weekend, I ask of you to please reflect on whatever suffering that you may be going through right now and to ask yourself why are you suffering. Ask yourself how you could change the way you talk with yourself to create the healing of your wounds and to eliminate the suffering. We have the ability to heal ourselves. Yes, healing is a process; there are no magical applications nor animal ointment which will heal our emotional wounds at this moment. We can however choose to lessen the daily grinds of suffering and begin the healing today via changing our thoughts and our internal voice.

Love ourselves more and begin the healing today; suffer less or better still, suffer no more.

“Worrying is the same thing as banging your head against the wall. It only feels good when you stop”
- John Powers


I wish you peace. I wish you joy.
Have a stress-free weekend ya! ^_^





"Walk on a trail of loving kindness
Walk on a path of compassion
And all else around you will be beautiful."
Every Blessing