Pain is mandatory suffering is optional – The Mechanics
- Pain is a function of the body, to guide you away from something not beneficial, like a hot stove. Keeping your hand on the stove will keep hurting. Once the body has been hurt, it will continue to hurt until you remove the source, and give it rest long enough to heal. That is not optional.
- The pain of suffering guides your attention away from thinking that is painful and not beneficial. Keeping your attention on the pain will keep it hurting. Emotional pain stops the moment you move away from it, when you move toward something better feeling. That is optional. (Or just don’t even create it.)
- Any feeling, thought, or belief that is not in alignment with who you naturally are (freedom, joy), or that causes pain to others (not in alignment with who they are, and the fact that you are not separate) will cause you suffering.
We don’t need to struggle with thoughts and beliefs to feel better now. You just need to pay attention to what you are feeling, to what you do want, and how that feels. When you do that, because you are not your thoughts, and they were never attached to you in the first place, thoughts fall away. Seek Joy!
Download the Alchemy cheat sheet, free (under “book”). Practice living in freedom and joy now.