Why do we suffer?

[fhansen]

Even in athletics it is said that “Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional.” Suffering is primarily thinking about pain in a peronalized way so that emotions, mostly negative, about consequences are activated. Mostly we confuse these two distinct things. One is physiology, that other is mentality.

So why do we suffer? Usually because we have been trained to do so, either subtly, by design, or by default of inadequate mental tools. Good antidotes to suffering can, for instance, be found in such things as Byrone Katie’s 4 questions and turn around, the Callahan technique and its variants, and any course of critical thinking that aligns the mind with getting out of the victim position.

Historically this has been done by training, from Bushido just raw heroism, even in the face of daily life. As practicing Catholics, we have ways from prayer to services to deal with suffering, our own or other’s.

I guess this is true if we define suffering as feeling sorry for ourselves. And I’ve done plenty of that. And without a doubt that will, if not cause suffering, certainly intensify the heck out of it!

 

[antroji]

Yes. This is easily demonstrable even in secular terms. There is a wonderful woman by the name of Byron Katie who seems to have made a career of reducing suffering by re framing the thoughts relative to its alleged cause. I believe I have encountered few people in my life who have about them any similar feeling or aura of Love and Compassion. Her “way” is to ask four questions and then critique the reverse of the dynamic of the situation one believes themselves to be in. It is a methodology, IMHO, consistent both with The Golden Rule and a thorough examination of conscience. “Conscience,” after all, means “with knowing” and may have a scope of application wider than the situations we might associate with “guilt.”

Anyone wishing to see her in action can go here and click on “watch.”