Our addiction to suffering

What if all of us were made with a fixed blueprint and that life is not such a mystery? What if each of us came with this map of our blueprint that tells us exactly how we should navigate in this world? What if we knew exactly what are our strengths, weaknesses and exactly how to work with them?

If you had all of this information, how do you think you would operate?

The thing with us humans is that even if we were given all of these, there's a chance that we would veer away from the information, wanting to find something better, thinking there is something more. A part of us, whether by design or by some negative conditioning tends towards more suffering. 

In our lizard brain*, we gravitate towards basic primitive human instincts and allow fear to run the day, no matter how beautiful or how brilliant an idea has been presented to us. We look for reasons why it wouldn't work, even before we try that something that may work. 

All of us suffer, on one level or another. It is a constant dance with life. I suppose suffering reminds us that we're alive. 

Suffering is our go-to like our addiction to coffee, alcohol or heroin. It is our unconscious go-to because it gives us a reason to remain stuck, miserable, poor, lonely, sad. 

Check-in with yourself now -- what are you addicted to? In your bad feelings, words, thoughts? Who do you target these towards?

Here's a list of possible addictions:

• Thinking you're never good enough
• Feeling inadequate
• Complaining about your spouse/partner
• Focusing too much on the negatives of a person
• Focusing on only the negatives in situations/circumstances
• Complaining about the general public, society, groups of people, types of people etc
• Waiting for something bad to happen - someone is going to cheat you, lie to you, misfortune befalling upon you

I think you get the gist. We hook ourselves into these, and all of the above brings us suffering, and never the peace of mind we truly crave for.

Now, think of one thing you can do today, to stop the cycle of the addiction of your suffering.

Some examples of what you can do:

• Start a gratitude log
• Say prayers of gratitude for what you have daily
• Send appreciation letters/notes/gifts to people in your life
• Being present and quiet, and listening to others who may need your kindness and energy
• Spend time in nature, just focusing on your breathing (you will be surprised at how much more alive you will feel)
• Speak more gently to the people you resent

Be free people. We do not need to suffer in order to feel alive. Deep breathing does the job really well. 

*"lizard brain" refers to the oldest part of the brain, the brain stem, responsible for primitive survival instincts such as aggression and fear ("flight or fight")"

© 2020 Shamala Tan

Let me know how I can assist you if you have any questions [email protected]

Shamala Tan is an author, spiritual entrepreneur and healer. Her work focuses on transforming the lives of others on the spiritual, emotional, mental and earthly level.

One of her success stories as an author is to being featured alongside New York’s bestsellers Sonia Choquette, Robert Allen, Arielle Ford, Marci Shimoff as well as Christine Kloser in the book Pebbles In The Pond.

Shamala’s clients include small business owners, holistic practitioners as well as those seeking to find more significant meaning and value in life. Shamala offers laser coaching to her clients on a one-to-one basis or in a group environment, offline as well as online.