How do I deal with the difficulties that happen in life?
This starts to get us down to this deeper level of what our working spiritual hypothesis is in the world, because one of the things that many spiritual traditions understand (depending on your viewpoint) is that suffering is a part of life. The Eastern school of thought is that we have to recognize that no matter what, whether you are spiritually enlightened or an average Joe, nobody gets out of here without difficulty.
One of the important lessons that I’m often coaching people on is a stepping stone that we have to start to separate out the difference between what is difficulty in life and what is suffering.
People will say, “Well, what about this issue with my friends?” or ” What about this issue with my family? I really feel stuck.”
You’ll notice that when you bring up an issue, it’s like this big jumble of a lot of different feelings and emotions and sensations in your body and reasons why it should be somewhere, should be another way. This is always a recipe for disaster.
What we learned to do is a two- step process.
What is the Objective Part?
We start to use our mind a little bit and we can start to say, “Okay, of all this jumble, what is the objective difficult part?”
I want you to make two columns on a piece of paper. One column is the objective difficulty.
“It’s actually very difficult that right now I’m low on toilet paper.”
I’m stuck at home and I’m homeschooling my kids.”
Whatever the reality is for you, the things that go on this list should be objective.
What is the Suffering Part?
What you start to put over on the other category is that the suffering things are the meaning that I put onto those things – the fear and the worries, stories that start to creep in that aren’t necessarily an objective difficulty. It’s a story that I’m making about the objective difficulty.
It is more of the fear stories.
“I’m worried about that we’re going to end up losing everything.”
“I’m worried about it that my parents are going to catch this virus and be in the ICU and I won’t be able to get to them and then they’re going to die. And then I will be a terrible daughter”
We have to start with this knowing. Then, we start to apply subtle-body-appropriate skills to trace these things down to their source because another body wisdom truth is that it’s never about what it’s about.
Even though on the surface it’s a worry that I’m gonna end up living under a bridge and lose everything, underneath we trace it down to what I would call the basement, which are the main causes of things.
Even just doing this with your mind will cut down on your suffering tremendously. What you start to realize is that it is possible to go through the difficulty of life without the mind stuff and the fear and the stories that really causes the suffering.
Difficulties in life are unavoidable, but the suffering aspect is optional. This is what we’re really working on in subtle body work.
Sending you lots of love!
Disclaimer: This program is not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health or counseling services. No practitioner-patient relationship is established and the training content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and nothing here is intended to diagnose, cure or treat any disorders.