Painful experiences

The thing about life is that you never know what to expect. You're plodding along in a certain rhythm one minute, and the next thing you know, life throws something your way that literally turns your world upside-down, and you've got to dance to another tune. Everything you had which you stood on or took for surety disappears and you feel lost. The more you try to cling onto stuff from your recent past, the more rope burn you seem to acquire.

That's the thing here - clinging, grasping, not letting it go. Is that what hurts us the most, or is it the loss of what you once had? Take any scenario for example. It might be a job (and let's face it; a lot of us these days have been made redundant or know someone that has), or a breakup. Or it could be a change of circumstances, like a family illness. You remember what your life was like before the event, and it just seemed so much sweeter, no matter how crap or difficult the situation was.

We all go through losses. It's just a part of life unfortunately. And we all know the cliched sayings or quotes - it gets worse before it gets better; it's a chance for you to start again; it'll make you stronger, blah blah blah.

So you go and buy the self-help books and you find a new lease of confidence. There's hope at the end of the tunnel, even if it is superficial. But it takes more than that. You've got to look inside and realise that you can get through this. Which brings me back to my point about the rope burn. I am a self aware clinger. It's in my nature. I will cling away to my heart's content and with great difficulty accept that it is over. Some things are worth fighting for of course, but for how long? When can someone safely say, "right, it's time to let go now. So do it."? Do we have that little blinking light in our brains which goes off at such scenarios?

Acceptance. Looking at your situation and putting yourself in the present moment. It's what stops your brain from becoming an avalanche of thoughts, which leads onto more suffering. Unfortunately we seem to be programmed to have one thought which leads onto another, and then another until you seem to be surrounded by this mental cocoon and the original thought, which was painful to begin with is now a tornado which has picked up a lot more debris which rips its way through your head.

As a result it's difficult to live in the now, and you lose opportunities to be happy. By all means cry about your situation, but realise that you are NOT your situation, and your situation is not YOU. Pain is unfortunately a part of life, but extensive suffering isn't. That part is up to you.