When You’re Fed Up with Your Own Suffering

how-to-deal-with-your-own-suffering

I’ve been staring at a blinking cursor for most of the day today.

I texted my friends. Help me write something, I’m so sick of my own crap about writing. I’m SO sick of suffering with this, I thought to myself, this is embarrassing already. Talk about how to move past it, they said. Talk about what the little gremlins are saying. Ugh. Of course, they told me to write about being sick of my own crap. OF COURSE THEY DID! This is exactly what I’d tell them too.

I am so sick of my own crap about writing.

how-to-deal-with-your-own-sufferingSick, sick, sick. I’m sick of the bad feelings I have in my belly and the way I twist when I think about writing. The way I already feel anxious on Monday night because Tuesday is my writing day. The way I often wake up Tuesday mornings in the middle of a dream about sitting at my desk feeling tight and upset. I am sick of the weird, strange, odd-ball duality that despite how much I LOVE to talk about healing with this beautiful Love Posse, writing doesn’t come easy for me.

Do I sound like a complainey baby yet? Because I am feeling like a complainey baby right now.

There are the stories I keep buying in to.

There’s the story I am sitting with now, that it’s all so hard. There’s the story that it must be ‘just so’ before I can hit publish. Often I find myself afraid that unless this writing is freaking perfect and amazing, something bad will happen to me.

In asking my inner little scardy-cat what she thinks she is saving me from by being so perfect, she tells me she’s saving me from a monster which will come and eat me, legs first, leaving me with only a torso and my head.

how-to-deal-with-your-own-suffering

She’s preventing the Writing Polezei from arresting me for the crappy punctuation and run-on sentences. Too many commas! You use too many commas!

When You're Fed Up with Your Own Suffering

She’s keeping everyone on my list happy, keeping them from fleeing en masse for fear that they might be harmed by my horrible, horrible, H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E writing.

When you're feeling fed up with your own suffering

She keeps telling me all these stories. I keep asking her why, why does she believe them? Why does she? Why? At the same time, I have to tell you, I don’t like to get lost in the whys. The whys are a dangerous territory. You never really find anything there other than more reasons to stay.

Eventually, I remember that my suffering is here to wake me up. It’s here to help me choose again.

The Course in Miracles says there are no small upsets. And I see this is true again and again. This upset right now is no different than the one when my mother was dying and my world felt like it was falling apart. I feel equally strangled today about this stupid writing story. Being fed up with our suffering is a good thing. It helps us to wake up. It helps us to see that we choose the tiny altars we worship. We choose the frequency with which We visit hell. We decide. We assign the weightiness to the upset. We choose the bigness of this dilemma.

I remember this and decide to take a little break.

I watch a little Downton Abby (of course I’ll marry you, you old booby! I thought you’d never ask!) have my favorite lunch with my favorite person and a certain Wonder Dog who insists, more bacon! There may or may not have been some XBox involved. There are more giggles with my friends including some goofy selfies. Things are looking okay again. Then I realize it might be helpful to you to hear all of this. So I scrap the other post and write about this…

When You're Fed Up with Your Own Suffering

There are moments when we feel lost and cannot find our way back…

Life is a practice, not a perfect. Even when we transcend or heal or evolve past an area we used to regularly get snagged in, there will be another. That’s life. That’s the journey. The point is, we are evolving. We are doing better all the time. We are learning to have compassion for our little selves who get lost and confused. We catch ourselves dancing with the shadows again. We find that we’ve been sitting at a tiny altar in hell all morning without realizing it.

How do we practice without some good material to practice with?

What if we could realize it more often, oh yes, that was my practice material! I wasn’t supposed to get lost in there, but it’s okay now – I understand more clearly now. Yes, thank you. I get it.

When You're Fed Up with Your Own Suffering

What if we could have a sense of humor about the crap we put ourselves through? What if we could have a kindhearted gentle laugh about the nightmare we had, instead of beating ourselves up? What if we could celebrate with relief that we are awake once again? What if it didn’t have to tear us so far down that it made our road back up so steep?

Wherever you are today as you read this, I hope it helps shine a little light in your heart.

I know if you saw me suffering you’d gently remind me to wake up, Sweetie… it’s gonna be okay. You’d tell me it’s just a temporary fog and don’t take it all so seriously. You’d tell me to take a break and go watch a little Downton Abby and have lunch with my favorite person… so I will tell you the same: It’s okay sweetie, this is just a little crap you’re caught in. Don’t take it all so seriously. This isn’t permanent. Don’t get lost here. Go do something else for a while and come back to this.

My love to you!

xxo

robin hallett intuitive healer and spiritual teacher

post updated 1/23/2017