Suffering – The Fullfilment Project

Reducing The Suffering Of Others

Naturally in life we don’t want to see other people suffer. However, we often go about the world interacting with others from our own point of view. We think about things in terms of how they impact us. This can cause us to be reactive to life’s events, asking ‘Why have they done this to me?’, for example. A better question to ask is ‘Why did they do that?’ This moves the thinking from us to them and allows us to consider the reason the other person is behaving the way they are.

Hurt people hurt people. So if someone hurts you with their words or their actions it is an indication that they are suffering, and rather than becoming reactive and trying to hurt them back, we could be compassionate and empathetic. This diffuses the situation and creates a space to helps the other person to heal. We will heal a little too.

If we reframe how we see our interactions with others and move from ‘How can I make things better for me?’ to ‘How can I reduce their suffering?’, then your relationships will improve and life will become more fulfilling.

Transforming Suffering

Happiness, Health, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

We all suffer, to some degree or another. For most it is to feel hungry or thirsty a few times a day, but we have the means to access food and drink. For some it is not having the ideal life that we want, but we have a lot of things that we do like. For some it is physical suffering like chronic pain. For some it is the mental anguish of anxiety or depression. We all fit on this spectrum at different places at various times in our lives.

When we are in the harsher end of the spectrum there is a trap that we often fall into where we think of ourselves as a victim and we ask ‘why me?’ This way of thinking makes us feel helpless. Having been there, I can tell you thinking that you are a victim makes what you are going through more intense and it lasts longer. There is a better option. We can think of the suffering in life as the curriculum we are given in order to live a fulfilling life.

I have Fibromyalgia and I am in pain every day and I often feel exhausted. I went through feeling like a victim and it did not help. I have realised that if I am to live a happier life I need to make changes to my thoughts and to my daily habits. I need to change my diet and to practice Chi Kung (Qigong) and to meditate every day, because this will reduce the pain in my body, increase my energy levels and put me in touch with the enormity of that which is outside of me.

When we suffer we can either think of ourselves as victims or we can take ownership of our journey through life. Taking ownership transforms your suffering into a curriculum and provides wise lessons, but you have to put the work in.

The Wisdom Of Suffering

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

No one likes to suffer, this is universal when it comes to the human condition. Suffering is a part of reality, in the sense that to be alive means, at some level, we suffer. We get hungry, we get cold, we don’t get what we want and we get what we don’t want. It could be either physical or emotional pain, or some might say psychological pain. Sometimes the situation we are in create unavoidable suffering. For these situations I hope you get the support you need.

However, generally speaking, how we interpret suffering will have an impact on our level of happiness. If it makes us feel helpless then we can fall into depression, if we are not careful. Though suffering can be a route to walk a spiritual path. Suffering can be a pathway to God or enlightenment, but we must be careful here. To use suffering to get closure to God or enlightenment does not work, you simply end up worshiping suffering.

Suffering can, however, be used as a tool to understand the human condition and how to live well. For example, certain situations would cause great suffering for us, but very little for others. This tells us that suffering is relative. It is relative because the amount to which it hurts us is linked to the amount we are attached to either our sense of Self, or Ego, or to things and experiences. When these are threatened or damaged the level of our suffering is often linked to our level of attachment. In this way we could ask how suffering can be a guide on the pathway to a life well lived.

Suffering Is A Choice

Happiness, Success, The Fullfilment Framework

As someone who suffers from chronic pain, I can tell you that our mood and the way we see the pain, makes it worse or better. The pain is still the same, but it feels less intense or more intense depending on our level of focus on it.

I have Fibromyalgia and it causes nerve pain in my joints and muscle across my whole body. Some days are better than others. I’m beginning to master the art of pushing the pain into the background and getting on with my day. It is possible, through practice, for you to do the same.

There is another type of suffering, the psychological kind. We often get attached to things, experiences and people and when we lose them we suffer. It is right to become attached to the people in our lives, but being attached to things like our mobile phone, our car, or our designer wardrobe, means that when they get a tiny amount of damage we suffer.

The none attachment that many eastern religions talk about does not mean that we must get rid of everything we own and live in a monastery, it means we have the things we need, but we avoid becoming too attached to them. It means we own these things and they don’t own us.

We can become attached to pain too, both the physical and the mental kinds. We avoid change and cling on to that which is predictable. Often this is the pain of a broken heart or the judgement of others or simply chronic pain. However, if we freed ourselves and stepped into the future without clinging to such things, then life will be brighter and better than ever before.