It is the beginning of a new year. Everyone is talking about happiness, joy, health. But for how many of these are just empty words, how many people are not feeling alone in the crowd, how really happy they are, how healthy, how much they do not suffer?
So today I would like to talk about suffering and how you can heal from it. Perhaps the new year will give you the necessary impetus, through ABURA (the steps to surpass Suffering: Acceptance, Burning, Understanding, Rebirth and Action), to discover a new path in which the suffering as you understand it today disappears from the palette of your feelings and emotions.
Man does not like to suffer, still he usually does things by which he generate suffering for him and others too, tending to even identify himself with it.
But first of all, why is there suffering? Is it a fate ?
When we manage to burn our expectations, frustrations, discontents and pain, we will also can escape the suffering. When we no longer see our happiness depending on the outside world, family, friends, work, then we escape the suffering.
But how can we not suffer when the ones we love, do not love us anymore or they are doing things that hurt us or we think they are hurting themselves or they are simply in pain?
Let’s take it logically. Suffering is a state, as it is happiness. You are happy when you can fulfil your needs, expectations and hopes. They are almost always outwards oriented. Failing to meet these needs leads to suffering. You start to suffer when your expectations are not fulfilled. And suffering prevents you from seeing things clearly and objectively.
When you have to think, you feel, and when you should feel, you think. There is nothing wrong in suffering, as long as it remains a temporary state. It is reasonable and necessary to let express itself like any other feeling. Still, when you are not able to get rid of suffering, it turns into a dangerous illness and begins to consume your being, living you empty and helpless.
Suffering does not come from outside; it comes from within, it arises from the conflicts that occur between your aspirations, desires, hopes and the “fixed” reality in which you have the impression that you are evolving.
Suffering should start a process of burning, purification — a process of understanding, learning, introspection and a chance to move forward. It should be a warning signal that makes you clear that something in your life is not going well, that perhaps the path you are on is not yours, not the right one. Through suffering, the subconscious mind tries to bring information in your conscious mind, to make you aware of it.
As far you can see around you, everywhere is suffering. You rarely find people who are at peace and balanced regardless of the situation, and who indeed are happy or more accurately are felling fulfilled.
Endlessly suffering does not help. It paralyses and blinds. Every situation, no matter how bad, has a solution that is revealing only when you are ready to surpass the sufferance. The suffering arises mostly from ignorance and non-acceptance of laws of the universe (and here I refer to the hermetic principles I wrote about these days).
How can you get out of the pain of the soul?
When we are born we have an almost unlimited potential. In fact, at that moment only the time, space and family in we are born limits that potential. Over time, this potentiality will become more and more limited until you will reach a point in life when you see no more alternatives. But this is false, because, even then, the potentiality is present, only you are no longer capable of seeing it. The only thing missing in such a moment is the courage to choose an alternative. You are trying to convince yourself: “I have no choice, I do not know how to live otherwise, I am not good enough, etc.” But you know something, all these are just excuses to further linger in the situation you are. You do not like it, but you identify yourself with it, you may even feel comfortable in your suffering because you think is better than the unknown. You would like to do differently, but you don’t have the courage. And so, you choose to remain in the situation that causes you unhappiness and suffering.
Steps to surpass Suffering: Acceptance, Burning, Understanding, Rebirth and Action (ABURA).
Acceptance. The first step is accepting that the things are how they are, seemingly with no solution. Accepting that you have left a broken soul, mind or heart. This is the reality of the moment! That is the situation. Now, you need to stop thinking that you have no choice, avoiding the trap that tell you: you have no choice, letting the situation to evolve out of your control. You have to give up the hope that if you don’t change anything about yourself, and under the same circumstances, the situation will resolve by itself. False! Maybe it will work out, but not in your advantage. You will find yourself in a worst position as you were in the beginning, when you became conscious of your problem.
Burning. I mean emotional burning. Externalise your sufferance. Allow yourself to whine, to scream, do things that you rejected until then. In this way, a great deal of suffering is released, letting raise the veil that covers your “eyes” and understanding.
Understanding. Now it’s time to discuss, to seek, to discover the origin of your suffering, the root of evil. It could lie deep in your past, even in your childhood. Of course, this can be a long-term process, in which you also would need the help of a specialist, a psychologist or spiritual guide, as you prefer. It is the time when through meditation, hypnosis, coaching, prayer, introspection you search in your heart for answers and ideas to resolve the problem. It is the moment when you put aside all preconceptions, all taboos, all physical and soul addictions and look deep into your heart, listening to what she tells you.
Rebirth. Once you became aware of these things, you found the problems inside, saw the solutions, you can recognise your potential again. You feel reborn. You know there are alternatives. You maybe feel eager to act.
Action. The action is an essential part. Without it everything is futile. You have to take action, to put in practice, as soon as possible, the solutions and alternatives you found. Otherwise, a relapse is threatening: the return to suffering. By action, you take your fate in your hands. By inaction, you leave everything to the will of others or of destiny. Destiny does not exist per se, it is only an accumulation of external factors that we allow, without restriction, to influence our lives.
Getting out of suffering is a simple process as much as complicated. It takes a lot of will, effort, self- discipline, determination and a strong desire to change something in your life. However, you can be sure, you have in you all the needed resources to achieve a life where the suffering just sets some turning points toward a life of peace and fulfilment.
I do not say it is easy; I say it is possible!
01. January 2020 – by Diana