Do you know what I find puzzling about the idea of suffering?
It's that it is essentially based on an individual's perspective. What is excruciatingly painful for one person may be something as close to an undesirable 'nuisance' for another. Suffering has no bounds, it is universal yet so diverse in the way it manifests itself into people's lives. Alan Watts talked about suffering, he said that we suffer because we allow ourselves to suffer. One may suffer because they feel as if suffering is what they deserve. It keeps them occupied, unable to move, resistant to change. Suffering may feel terrible but it still has its stability.
Pain is real, for those of us who have feelings anyway. But we don't need to suffer from pain. It's this idea that drives me to keep going during hard moments of my life. I dictate how I react, but not how I feel. Feelings cannot always be controlled and I've found that, that is quite alright. Crying from pain is a form of release and it is not malevolent in character, but letting ourselves suffer means to become a pawn of the experience. It holds us back from the present moment which is the only thing that exists. The past already happened. The future doesn't even exist yet. The present is the only form of control that we have in the midst of chaos and uncertainty.
Our souls are fragile things. It believes in us before we even believe in ourself. Our mind can be altered but the soul cannot mask its genuine nature. The soul absorbs what we let it. If we allow ourselves to suffer the soul will be crippled with the idea of it. It immerses itself in whatever torments we allow into our consciousness. Similarly, if we allow positive light to come within our being we will become it. The soul will understand the beauty and manifest itself into its energy.
So feel pain. Feel every emotion running through your body. Feel, but do not ever let yourself suffer.
