Deeper Implications of Suffering

You may well have been thinking to yourself these past few days –

“The mindfulness challenge this week to be attentive to suffering has not been any fun at all. What a horrible idea!”

Some of you might have decided to set this particular mindfulness assignment aside and either revisit a previous challenge or take a much deserved vacation from mindfulness challenges. Why in the world did I suggest that you become attentive to suffering?

Suffering as it turns out is an extra burden we create that overlays mental angst and emotional distress on top of physical pain. Suffering is not required or necessary. It is something that we impose on ourselves that amplifies the physical pain.

How many times have you seen an individual, particularly those that you love, suffer.  You think to yourself or even say to them –

“Stop! Get over it. Get on with your life.” 

How many times have you had that thought or expressed it to another person?

Permit me to introduce a rambling tirade which imposes additional challenges that are quite necessary. Dealing with the physical pain taken alone is a formidable challenge in itself. Imposing the additional burdens of suffering is overwhelming and unmanageable.

Perhaps the following tirade may sound vaguely familiar to you?

“This is the second painful cramp that I’ve had in my right calf this week, yuck!  This time I’m sure it’s going to get worse just like it did before when this happened several weeks ago.  This cramp is more than I can stand.  What in the world is wrong with me?  First there was the problem of tremor, then unsteadiness and now cramping?  What’s really going on?  Oh my God.  Perhaps the cramping that I’m experiencing right now is something really, really serious.  Maybe the reason I’m cramping is that I have a brain tumor.  Maybe I have cancer.  Maybe it’s something really serious like a stroke is about to unfold.  Oh my God.” 

The tirade above gives you a flavor of the irrational impositions that we too often attach to physical pain. This cacophony of worries and frets adds a thick layer of anxiety which is entirely unnecessary. Adding the overlay of suffering makes the pain seem so much acute.

All of the statements and thoughts in this tirade are fabrications of the imagination. They impose additional burdens which need not be assumed because they never existed in the first place. The person above did not have a stroke. They do not have cancer.

It is recommended to set suffering aside when the rattle trap of negative thoughts creep into your head.

“Oh, I’m sure my reasoning is obviously ridiculous.  Let me just place this tirade on the top shelf of my ‘stupid and silly thoughts’ kitchen cabinet. I can always take them out tomorrow if I choose to enjoy suffering again tomorrow.” 

Place the tirade of suffering on the cabinet shelf. Shut the cabinet door. Of course you may want to re-visit the thoughts tomorrow, especially if you are eager to find a little pleasure out of it all. Admittedly, we can all derive pleasure from suffering. Most people however discover that once the thoughts have been locked up, they have no need to re-visit them.

Once the overlay of suffering has been dissolved, initiate a dialogue with the cramping in your right calf or your right thigh or your left thigh or with whatever difficulties you might currently be having.

  • What’s up here? 
  • What’s going on? 
  • How does that discomfort actually feel?
  • Does it come and go? 
  • Does it have intensity that fluctuates? 
  • Is it sharp in character?
  • Is it dull? 
  • What does that discomfort actually feel like in the moment? 

When people wipe away the overlay of suffering that they imposed on the pain and the   discomfort, guess what?  The pain and discomfort lesson. You begin to feel a little better.  The pain is not as acute or as bothersome.

I know you probably think I have got it all backwards. It would seem more logical to predict that when you pay closer attention to pain it should get worse. Right?  Not true.

If you really sink into what is going on with your body, you can not only get an accurate fix of the character of the discomfort but determine its root cause. Once you get a few good clues about the cause, you are finally in a position to do something about it.

To summarize – suffering is actually unnecessary.  It is something that we do to ourselves. Symptoms become significantly worse when we add the unnecessary ingredient of suffering.

It is easiest to notice the suffering in others which is the reason for the challenge this week. If your experience has been like mine, it is overwhelming to realize how much suffering people create for themselves.  Shift that awareness to yourself. Why not take suffering out of the equation when physical pain is present?

When you impose suffering on top of the pain and discomfort, gather together all thoughts of suffering that ramble on and on. Place the entire tirade inside your kitchen cabinet of “stupid and silly thoughts.” Shut the door. Forget about them.

Once suffering is out of the picture you can become much more mindful and attentive to the signals your body is sending moment to moment.  Disengage suffering from the physical character of symptoms. Your body is always trying to send messages to you moment to moment.  Put suffering aside and listen mindfully to the messages your body is sending.

You body is always talking.

We just have to learn how to listen mindfully.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery

Notice Suffering

My mindfulness challenge for you this week is to become fully and completely attentive to the suffering of other persons.  Let me make something absolutely clear at the outset.   The invitation is not that you suffer yourself. Rather, become aware and sensitive to the suffering of other persons.

Suffering can come in rather extreme packages.  We are certainly all aware of the suffering of individuals who are seriously ill and in pain.  Suffering can also assume milder forms.  There can be many nuances of suffering in the tone of a person’s voice, in their expressions or even in the way they may hesitate or stumble over the words they speak. With each and every encounter with another individual, become fully attentive and aware of all suffering that may be evident with the other person.

Some examples may help flesh out the idea behind the challenge this week.

  • You are driving in your car down the street. A person driving in their car behind you decides that they need to drive a couple of inches next to your back bumper.  Look in the mirror. Examine the expression on their face. Sink in to what may be going on with the person who is on your tail. There is obviously suffering present.
  • You are standing in a line waiting to pay for groceries.  The person behind you is obviously very agitated. Their body is tense and contorted. They are eager to pass through the line very, very quickly.  Look. Notice the expression on their face. Be attentive to what is going on with them in the present moment.
  • You are sitting at the dinner table when a family member shifts into an emotional outburst. Pay close attention to their ever changing feelings as they unfold over the course of the outburst. Suffering can settle in for a spell and – all of a sudden – vanish in a flash. Obverse any indications of irritation, flashes of anger and little flares of frustration that slip out uncontrollably. Take delight in a release from the suffering which may be accompanied by a funny tale. The shifts can be shocking and the nuances flabbergasting.
  • You are listening to your favorite radio show when a listener calls in to rant. Extend your assessment of suffering to people on the radio who rant. You can hear suffering in their voices.

Suffering is ever-present in every one’s life. We do not have to be licensed detectives to confront it firsthand in ourselves or others.

Be aware of what suffering looks like. How does it feel inside your body when you connect from a deep place inside of you with the suffering of another?  Is there a unique sensation in your physical body that emerges? Does the suffering you encounter assume an intensity that ranges from mild to severe? Or, is the intensity even handed and reserved? Make no judgments. Simply observe. Be mindful of each and every encounter you have with a person who is suffering in the moment.

When you observe suffering – and you are likely to observe it often over the course of one day – do a quick assessment of its character, intensity and extensiveness for the individual.

Most of us (myself included!) prefer to run away from suffering. Turn that fear around this week. Become more and more sensitive and attentive to the suffering of each person you encounter. Please keep in mind – as I said at the outset – please do not take on the suffering of others. It is not yours to have. Simply become aware of the suffering of others and leave it at that.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery

Deeper Meaning Behind Mindful Listening

How has the mindfulness challenge this week to listen like a sponge been going? I’m guessing that your comfort level with this mindfulness challenge will be a function of your background and education.  If you are a lawyer or a judge, this assignment and challenge would have been particularly challenging.  You have been trained to always respond, argue, debate and criticize.  This is also true of academics, the foundation of my own background and experience.  If you are a therapist, artist or musician the challenge might not have been quite so difficult.  Therapists are trained and experienced at fully and completely devoting their full attention to another person. Artists and musicians are trained to go with the flow so to speak.

Have you avoided the challenge? Did you forget about it? Have you engaged it? If so, what has been your experience?

I am hoping that there has been at least one encounter that you have had over the last several days when the other person sucked your energy with a war of words that allowed no opportunity for you to even respond or reply even if you wanted. In such circumstances, the urgent need is to make up an excuse to get away from the person. My response is typically –

 “I have a meeting. Sorry. Have to go now.”

Of course – the meeting is often with myself, but it is familiar company and we get much done the two of us.

There are people in my life just like the person I described above. I suspect there are people in your life as well. There are people who are experts at sucking the energy of other people. There is no exchange of energy. With each and every encounter, it feels as though such persons have sharp claws that grab into our physical body and pull out any and all remnants of energy remain.

Individuals who make it a practice to suck the life force of others have what is described as an oral personality; they have been abandoned at one point or another in their life.  We need to have forgiveness and compassion for such individuals.  Many people carry the wound of abandonment.

Still, it is very challenging to be around such persons for longer than a few minutes.  I can personally be depleted of all my energy in a matter of five minutes.  My energy depletes and drains quickly. Has this possibly happened with you?  Have you thought to yourself –

“Oh, my God, I can’t be a sponge any longer; I’ve got to exit this particular conversation.” 

Or, did you have to abort the mindfulness challenge altogether? Did you find an excuse to leave? Did you just stop listening like a sponge? Did you get angry? Or, did you somehow interact in a way that allowed for the encounter to be suspended or terminated?

Why am I hoping that this particular experience might have been one that you have had over the last several days?  It is actually similar to our reactions when we have no choice but to listen to our own body communicate messages of distress and pain.

Perhaps it is the case that your body is sending out many signals today of pain and discomfort. Perhaps you are feeling, frankly speaking, lousy.  What are you going to do in response to this lousy day? Are you going to want to try to get away from the messages your body is trying to communicate? Most people do. Do you think about taking a vacation so that you don’t have to be living with your body?  Many of us have had those feelings.

We can always get away from another person using one excuse or another or just walking away. It is unfortunately never possible to take a vacation from our body.  Many people check-out in the sense that they stop listening to their bodies.  They say to themselves,

“Boy, things are really haywire in there.  I’m really angry at you.  I’m going to go to somewhere and get this fixed.” 

There is then frantic rush to find somebody out there that can somehow relieve the symptoms that are being experienced. No quick fix exists for most people, so this response usually leads to more frustration.

The real challenge for the rest of the week is to be fully and completely present to all of the messages your body is communicating to you moment to moment. Be fully and completely present to all messages and information that you body is sending in the form of symptoms.

Perhaps there is a tremor in your right hand.  Connect with that tremor. Ask your hand, just as if it were a person,

“What’s up?  Talk to me, let me know what’s going on.” 

Ask your body (as if it were another person) to give you the information you need to understand what in the world might be causing the tremoring.  You can do this with any symptom whether it is –

  1. Pain due to stiffness
  2. Difficulty with walking
  3. Challenge with swallowing
  4. Embarrassment due to tremors

It does not matter what the symptom is. Connect with the organ, limb or muscle in your body that is problematic in the moment. Instead of running away from the challenge –

Connect with it.

Become a sponge. 

Ask your body to say more.

“Hello? Help me out. What’s going on here?”

Engage an authentic dialogue. Some therapies treat symptoms by masking them. The cause remains undiscovered and untreated. Over time symptoms usually get worse.

The challenge for recovery is to go a step further and to ask,

“What is causing this symptom?  What’s really going on here?  What do I need to change about my life to be able to correct the problem that is causing the symptom that I am currently experiencing?”

There is no simple solution. There are no simple answers.  The factors that create the symptoms of Parkinson’s are multi-faceted.  They are indeed complicated and convoluted.

It is possible and doable to chip away at the causes little by little.  How do we do that?  We become a sponge.  We treat our body as if our body were another person.  We connect fully and completely with the full essence of what our body is trying to communicate. This is how we figure out what is causing the symptoms. This is also how we figure out what to do about it.

Our body is a miracle. Our body knows how to heal.  When the body is out of balance, it is not its normal state. Wellness and balance is.

Become a sponge.

  1. 1.      Connect
  2. 2.      Listen
  3. 3.      Receive

Your body is giving you information every minute of your life.  Listen to your body as if you were a sponge, just as you have been listening to others communicate their concerns to you this week. Extend to your body the precious opportunity to heal. You will be amazed and dazzled at the result.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery

Listening

The mindfulness challenge that I have for you this week is to become a sponge when listening to friends, family and co-workers talk.  Listen with your entire body, your heart and your essence.  Listen as if you were a sponge.

  1. Hear every nuance.
  2. See every gesture.
  3. Notice every pause.
  4. Sense every emotion.
  5. Soak up every word.

No responses need be offered or given, even if solicited.

When another person talks “at us”, it is not uncommon to extend to them a tiny fraction of our full attention. We half-way listen to what they are saying as we ponder the many unfinished tasks that remain to be done by the end of the day. We are all guilty!

How many conversations do you typically have with other people that are unsatisfying? How often do you feel as though you have not been heard? How frequently do you realize that the person is only partially attentive to what it is you are trying to communicate?  How often does the other person claim that they understand you, but you know in your heart that they do not come close?

When you do communicate with others this week – be a sponge. Notice any thoughts that float into your mind as you listen. Simply acknowledge each and every thought as they emerge whatever they might be. Place them in a “holding” container as you continue listening.

As a person talks you might notice they have –

  • Wrinkles or
  • A scratchy face or
  • Moles under their left ear

Perhaps you think to yourself –

“My goodness.  My friend is looking much older today than they did the last time I saw them last month.” 

Thoughts do pop into our heads that have nothing to do with what the person is attempting to communicate. There is no practical way to stop those thoughts. When they do slip into your head, simply say to yourself –

“Oh, right.  Okay, let me just put this thought aside and re-direct my attention to absorbing all that this person that I’m talking with right now is saying. I want to hear all the words. I want to understand their true intent. I want to get the full meaning.”

To become a sponge means to –

Absorb all the words

Be fully and completely present

Hear every idea the person is trying to convey

Understand the true meaning of their words

Honor the feelings underneath their words

It may well be the case that there are situations where you do have to make decisions.  Of course you need to do that. But, in other instances when you are communicating with another individual, be a sponge. Get the full experience of what it means to devote your full energy, attention and essence to what the other person is attempting to say. Not everyone is a word smith. Sometimes you have to listen with your heart.

Robert

© Parkinsons Recovery