Do you create your own suffering?

Author Haruki Murakami once wrote “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

Our thoughts can be a wonderful asset, planning, problem solving, evaluating.  We trust our thoughts to help us find our way through the complexities of life both literally and figuratively.

Sometimes however our minds can become our worst enemies.  They can keep us stuck in judgment.  Judgments that are relentless, debilitating and consuming.

Mindfulness can help us see how the mind works.  It teaches us to observe and notice where our attention is.  Mindfulness invites us to explore what is actually in front of us.

Not getting caught up in our thoughts, but watching this with an openness and acceptance is often the hardest part.

At any given time we can notice the richness and beauty around us.  We can calm an agitated mind, but what if that very same part of ourselves is creating our own agitation? What then?

It is common to get lost in thoughts and lose connection with the present moment, this can take us into the hurts of the past; the lost dreams; the disappointments in ourselves and in others; the planning; the worry; the drive for better and better and even better!

Previously in this blog I have talked about ‘autopilot’ when our mind says to the body “you just do your thing, whatever it is you are doing, while I just wander off somewhere”.

Often in that wandering are judgments that create our own suffering.

Judgments come in all shapes and sizes. External judgments on others not doing things as we would like them to do; not holding our values; things not turning out as we want.

Internal judgments on ourselves can be constant.  Noticing when we have let others down; punishing thoughts of ‘I’m not a good enough mother/father/partner/sibling/friend/person’ or ‘I have never been able to do that well’.  We falsely excuse our own behaviour ‘it’s just the way I am’ knowing we don’t believe that.  We really wish we were different, better able to manage, control, change ourselves.

Relentless judgments of not doing something as well, of thinking too much, being too emotional.

Ever found yourself judging neutral events like the weather? “I don’t want it to rain” or “I wish it wasn’t so hot”.  It is weather, we can experience it or we can suffer in it.

This week’s challenge is to notice the judgments creeping in to your internal language.  I often like to say notice the ‘shoulds’.  Notice when you ‘should’ on yourself or ‘should’ on others! Should is such a disempowering word.

Think about it, how often do you hear in your already busy mind, phrases about how someone really shouldn’t do that or you yourself should know better by now?

Judgment keeps us in a state of dis-ease. It prevents us from accepting others and ourselves.  It keeps us suffering when we don’t need to.

Notice the judgments and let them slide.  Don’t judge yourself for having the judgment, don’t be hard on yourself.  Most people can’t go 24 minutes without judgment let alone 24 hours or 7 days!

Go gently, accepting yourself and others.  Murakami also wrote “the fact that I’m me and no one else is one of my greatest assets.”