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Suffering is Optional, Pain is Not

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Staring Contest
Creative Commons License photo credit: Kim Marius Flakstad

I am not in denial of the hardships of life. I know that life happens the way it does! After all, every thought that has ever been thought is “made flesh” on our planet, including murder, rape, disease, all of it. I am not blind to these things. But I understand that our suffering is generated in the mind FIRST.

There is a difference between pain and suffering. I can experience pain and yet not suffer. Pandora, a horse with a critical allergy to grass is a great example of the difference between pain & suffering. She has a life threatening skin allergy yet I do not see suffering when I look at her.

The difference is this, pain is a consequence of something we experience, but whether or not we suffer is up to us and how we frame that experience in our minds. It’s our thinking that causes our suffering.

If Pandora was wrought up in thoughts about how sad and bad her condition was, she WOULD suffer just like we do when we create stories in our minds about how bad something is. But Pandora is a great example of someone who is not attached to a painful story about her condition or the condition of the world. It is our thoughts about the world that causes our suffering!

Victimhood is a diagnosable and wide-spread state of consciousness that has us seeing ourselves as being at the mercy of a dangerous world. It is not what we experience in life BUT what we do with that experience inside our own mind, what we think & decide about it that determines our degree of suffering.

Mud Season
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Trusting Life … even hardship….

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We may not know why difficulties come, but we trust there IS a reason and that it’s for the highest good. To resist the hardships we encounter only brings more pain so we learn to witness & look for the lessons contained within them.

Not a single thing have I faced in life – no matter the level of hardship – that didn’t turn out to be necessary and helpful towards expanding my understanding of Life & Source.

Life challenges are the things that grow us. They are our difficult friends.

Blessings, Lynne

Defining Victim

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We see the world through a victim lens anytime we make something out there responsible for our own state of well-being.
It doesn’t matter if we see that thing as causing us happiness or pain … it’s still victim mentality when we hold anything outside ourselves as the cause of our own inner state; we are seeing ourselves as done to by or at the mercy of … this is the definition of a victim.

Anytime we think, “he made me” … or ” she did it to me” … we are in victim mentality.

For a greater understanding read, “Faces of Victim” “>

Mental Fasting

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Recently I participated in a mental fast. This is a practice that involves keeping close vigilance over thoughts that come and go in the mind… The intention is to watch for the least budding of a negative thought. When a stressful or low frequency thought surfaced, I would immediately apply the principle of “upping” the emotional/mental frequency by looking for a “higher” version of that thought. The other application is, instead of spiraling into negativity, to consciously return the mind to a place of gratitude.

By the fifth day of this practice, much to my surprise, I found myself processing a very dense load of stress producing unconsciousness! The result was that I saw myself being more negatively reactive than I’d been in years!

SO What happened? Why wasn’t I experiencing MORE peace and harmony instead of this onslaught of negativity?

I decided that this arduous mental task of monitoring negative thoughts may work very much the way a physical cleanse sometimes does in the body.

As I think about it I’m reminded of a type of alternative health treatment called “chelation therapy”, which is a way of clearing toxic metals out of the body’s main arteries. Some professionals warn against chelation because it can loosen up toxins in the body so fast that the “debris” can end up overloading the bloodstream with dangerous residue. As a result, a chelation patient may end up getting really sick, even becoming deathly ill, as the body goes through its’ healing crisis.

This “loosening of painful debris” is what I think I experienced on a mental level. Through the practice I think I stirred up “mental toxins” in the form of old beliefs and negative stories that had been lying dormant for years. As I practiced consciously “upping” my emotional frequency by changing the negative thought to a higher vibration, I imagine chunks of painful childhood story loosening and coming to the surface … assumptions about self and the world that had lay hidden, deeply embedded in unconsciousness floated to the surface of awareness for my “viewing pleasure”.

My task (and it WAS a challenge) was to see this process as a good thing, rather than use thus surge of negative thoughts as a reason to derail my mental practice. Rather than decide the practice wasn’t working, to see it as doing the very job intended – to purge the mind of stressful thoughts by bringing them to the surface of consciousness where I have the opportunity to clear.

Are you”wigging out”?

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When you find yourself “wigging out” over some life happening … here are a few reminders on how to regain sanity …

Breathe deeply … ground and center … write your painful thoughts down and take them through Byron Katie’s four questions and turn around. Thoughts like; “… I’m being held back”, “The world is trying to keep me down”, “I don’t deserve better … ” or, “They’re attacking (or taking advantage of) me …” – may be some of your own core story lines that are being brought up so that you can see them for what they are – untrue, stressful thoughts. Use this opportunity to clear them.

Remember that life happens FOR us (not to us) …. To see it any other way means we’re in victim mind. How could this terrible thing be happening “for” you? That’s an important question to ask … start by asking yourself that very thing and then begin to seriously watch for the lessons being offered. See these as gifts …. that, after all, is what they truly are.

It helps to remember that the Universe is designed to reflect our limiting stories to us for the purpose of expanding our consciousness. Whenever something painfully unexpected happens, that’s what’s truly going on – our own thoughts and beliefs are being reflected to us in vivid technicolor “for our viewing pleasure …”. 🙂

Remind yourself that the Universe is a friendly place – there are no mistakes. You are being offered learning opportunities – there is nothing more important than your own mental freedom.

You can choose to trust the way of it. It happened, therefore it is – pure and simple. No amount of freaking out will change that. Peace IS an option through acceptance of reality.

Align with what is – and find that peace that’s available for you. You can’t force life to go according to your own agenda … but the good news is … you don’t need to make things happen according to your plans! 🙂

Instead you can choose to relax, trust and remember that you’re being taken care of every single step of the way. You’re being universally supported this very minute – breathe in that support! If you stay caught up in your “freak-out” story, railing against the way things are, then you won’t be available for the gifts available in the situation. Once you regain center, you will be better able to “show up” for whatever adventure this life drama holds for you.

When you’ve regained sanity, take a few minutes to visualize how you would like the situation to go. Stay with the vision just long enough to be able to really feel what it would be like for the situation to turn out the way you imagine it. (Even a few seconds of positive envisioning can be enough.) Then give thanks for the abundance and move on.

Challenges in life give us a chance to transform our victim mind. That’s their true purpose. Once we realize that, we can become the watcher, able to trust the what is as being exactly what needs to be, rather than seeing the situation through the eyes of a powerless victim, who is railing against reality.

These are the things I do … I’m sure they’ll work for you too …. May peace result.

Blessings,
Lynne

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