Self Created Suffering?

I often wonder how much of our suffering is simply created by our own fear. Do we sometimes in a sense choose our own suffering? Are our thoughts and actions keeping us stuck in a place of suffering? What are we gaining from constantly worrying, being fearful or being in pain? Do we think suffering somehow serves us or others? Are we in a sense creating our own little drama filled with suffering and pain?

I've heard the saying pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. What does that really mean? From my understanding that means that we will encounter many difficult, even painful situations on this journey we call life. It's what we do with those situations and the feelings associated with them that determines weather we suffer or how long we suffer.

Do we seek to hang on to the pain reliving it over and over again, or do we seek to find ways to experience it and then let it go?

Do we sometimes actually create pain and suffering that really isn't necessary at all by creating little scenarios or dramas in our mind about how things could be or should be or used to be? How much of what we are experiencing is really ocurring and how much of it is just created by thoughts of what could be or memories of what has been?

It seems that many times we create our own painful situations through our fear of what could happen or a memory of what has happened. We sometimes project our own fears onto others and inject that fear into situations where no fear needs to enter in.

Let's say you had a terrible accident while riding a horse as a child. Now every horse you see feels like a danger to you. You don't want to go near horses. You are projecting your fear of that one horse on to all other horses. Now let's say you have a child and your child grows up and wants to ride a horse, you can't let your child ride that horse because when you rode that one horse you nearly died. You are stuck in that memory and are projecting that situation onto the current situation. Your fear is running you. Now let's say your child is old enough to make their own choices and they decide to ride the horse. You become so worried that you become physically ill, you are sure that something bad will happen because when you rode that one horse, you almost died. They may ride the horse and do fine, but each time they ride you are irrationally fearful. You are creating drama that doesn't exist. Yes, the horse could be a danger, yes your child could get hurt, but there is also a chance your child will never be hurt while riding a horse. You are stuck holding on to that old situation and projecting it into any other situation that you encounter where there is a horse involved.

How do we stop creating our own suffering? It seems the key is to remind our self that that was then and this is NOW. What happened to you once does not have to happen again, it does not have to happen to others, may never happen to others and is not some sort of pattern for everything that will happen to you and everyone else.

The other key seems to be in facing the feelings of situations head on and then releasing them so that we are not stuck reliving them over and over again every time something reminds us of the past. Don't be afraid of those feelings and hide from them, but allow ourselves to experience them fully and work through them so that we can see that life does indeed go on and bad situations don't have to be repeated over and over again.

It's as if we need to fully embrace what hurts us so deeply or causes us great fear and suffering so that we can then fully let it go and stop letting the fear and suffering run our lives. Clinging to our fear and our suffering really serves no purpose other than to hold us back from living the full and happy lives we deserve.

Wounded?

Could it be that we've been hurt in some way a long our path and instead of learning a lesson from what has happened we have hung on to the hurt and this is what has caused what appears as a wound to us. Perhaps underneath what appears to be a wound we are still healthy, whole, and beautiful. What if healing is just a matter of letting go of the hurt and remembering what it feels like to be whole. What if the way to heal our "wounds" is to stop seeing ourselves as wounded?

Perhaps we are not wounded ones with broken wings at all, but we are forgetful ones who have forgotten that letting go of our hurts will heal our "wounds" and return us to a state of wholeness. Wouldn't that be interesting?

Make the "time".

From what I've learned one of the most important things we will do in our life is to form relationships with others. Each and every person we come into contact with in our life is a chance to form a relationship, whether it be as brief as a 10 second smile or as long as a 40 year friendship does not matter. What matters is we put ourselves out there and connect in a loving, caring, respectful, trusting manner and that shows an interest in someone else as a living breathing being that deserves recognition of some kind.

We sometimes get so busy in our worlds we forgot to stop and connect with those around us. We may think we don't have enough time to reach out or we may be too preoccupied with our own selves to reach out, but it only takes a few seconds to share a smile. A few minutes to send an email saying, "thinking of you". It takes more time to purchase a card and send it and even more time to make a card and send it. Of course, we don't always have time to make phone calls or write long detailed filled messages to people, but think of the times a brief line at just the right time or a smile from a stranger changed your entire outlook on the day.

Imagine the importance your smile may have to a complete stranger. What comes to my mind is a time when I was going to attend a retreat. I am normally very shy and uncomfortable in new situations and with being among people I have never met in person. As I walked into the room of strangers, late no less, I was greeted by one women with a huge friendly smile of welcome. Immediately I relaxed and knew I would be OK. Her one smile changed my outlook and whole experience. That woman and her smile remain etched in my heart and mind and every time I am in a group experience or out in public. I think of how much that one gesture meant to me and I pass that gesture forward by trying to give a smile to everyone that I meet.

Of course, I am human and I have good days and bad days and sometimes I am too hurried to acknowledge those around me, even those I love the most. But, now I am aware enough to know how important relationships are, so I try to pay attention and make the time to reach out as often as possible to everyone I meet. I also take the time and make more of an effort to tend to and nourish the very close relationships that I have so that those who are special to me, know they are truly special not just to me, but to the world. It really doesn't take that long and nothing in this world will have a more lasting effect or impact on the world than the relationships I've formed.