How We Embrace Suffering in Our Lives

 "I don't understand how this happened to my life... " words all too frequently spoken by multitudes of people who find they have arrived at a place where something in their lives has become unbearable; and so the question spills forth in anguish. Are we responsible for the suffering that has taken control of our life? Could it be that we not only invited it in but also have the power to release it?

Our thoughts are powerful, transforming and even dangerous. They become threatening and a part of our suffering when we attach to them without searching for the truth before we attach to it. Once we believe a thought is true, it becomes a belief. A belief is a thought we have attached to, many times for years. They may even begin into our childhood, as we were influenced by the adults around us who may have unknowingly shared incorrect assumptions that we embraced as truth. For others, it is a matter of perception; they didn't really understand what they embraced.

The dynamics of how we form relationships determines whether we will blindly accept ideas as truth or insist on examining them before embracing them as truth. If you have friends or family members who are controlling and manipulating, you may have been conditioned to accept inappropriate ideas without questioning the source. If you find that you feel disloyal if you choose to look for truth, you are probably in those kinds of circumstances.

This becomes problematic when you build expectations, positive or negative, about the outcome of any idea you have attached to that is false. It has the same effect as playing a virtual game on your computer and believing that you exist in that reality, basing expectations on it. The anticipated results can easily become a bitter disappointment that leads to real suffering. You may spend years or even a lifetime walking through the maze of emotions and confusion, never understanding where it all began. Yet the pain is agonizing, the cure seemingly a mirage that just moves further out of reach.

If personal suffering has been a frequent companion in your life, scrutinize the area where the suffering is most intense and recurring. It is there that you can find the false ideas you have attached to as your personal beliefs. It is also there that you will find the cure you have been wandering around searching for in vain. Not right before your eyes, but within mind where the attachment occurred. By re-examining the patterns of behavior that occur in these instances, you will find the attachment that you must focus your attention on to find the truth. Once you identify it, it is essential that you release the emotions that are involved with holding on to that perception.

People who are caught in this trap of false perceptions that have become their beliefs frequently find themselves playing the role of victim in their lives. It can begin as early as childhood bullying or abuse from parents and siblings and may extend to an entire lifetime of domestic or general abuse. Like every dis-ease in our life, it is necessary to find the cause to effect a cure. This one is so worth searching for, it is the beginning of a healthier, more fulfilling life, and just a search away from reality.