(Read to the end of this post for the winners of my competition last week.)
I’ve been through some black clouds this week, I expect some of you reading this have, also. But millions of people have it far worse than me, and probably you as well.
I was talking to a family member about this. She’s going through her own issues. We were discussing how to honour our own suffering without allowing it to define us.
Whether it’s physical, emotional, mental or practical, we all have problems, and sometimes they threaten to take us over.
The problem with problems
Image by Marja van Bochove
The problem is that the problem can run away with us. You know what that’s like: you focus on what’s wrong and so you feel worse and worse. Your thoughts drag you further and further down, like a muddy whirlpool. Your thoughts create a worse reality than you were in five minutes ago. Your suffering and problems will begin to define who you are if you let them.
But… if we don’t acknowledge our suffering we’re in danger of creating a Pollyanna on Prozac unreality for ourselves.
What doesn’t work
- Beating ourselves up: “but so many people are worse off than me, I’m a really bad person to feel so sorry for myself”. That’s just going to make you feel guilty about feeling bad, on top of feeling bad.
- Minimising it, telling ourselves what we’re going through doesn’t really count as “suffering”.
- Other people telling you you just need to buck your ideas up (caveat: very occasionally that can be exactly what you need)
- Ignoring the problem, telling yourself “I’m fine, really”. Because you’ll either go into a kind of emotional paralysis or your brain will kick back and pick up on the lie, which will make you feel worse.
- Dwelling on the problem, brooding about it endlessly.
- Doing nothing about it. A really bad option.
What does work
Here are a few suggestions:
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Image by D Sharon Pruitt
Create a ritual to honour your own suffering. Sit down, clear some space for yourself, your feelings and thoughts and journal or draw them. Don’t censor yourself with any “shoulds”, and don’t minimise how you feel. Or light a candle or some incense and sit with your suffering, acknowledge it fully, for five minutes only. Or write a story about how you feel and then store it somewhere, perhaps in a beautiful bottle (to subvert the notion of bottling up your feelings), or bury it in the garden.
- Use other people’s stories of hardship as inspiration, not as a stick to beat yourself with.
- Do something physical, if you can. There’s nothing like movement to shake up the cobwebs and get those endorphins jiggling.
- Gather a list of favourite inspirations that will give you some energy. I love this, and I often get up and dance to this or this.
- Get some counselling or therapy or practical help. Sometimes we’re too proud and think we can or have to do everything ourselves (that’s a big issue for me).
- If you’re religious, pray in your own tradition. If you’re not, find some kind of grounding meditative technique.
- Find one aspect of the problem you can do something about, even if it’s just changing your attitude to it. Make a start on dealing with this aspect in some small way. Do something else small tomorrow. Baby steps build momentum.
Well, I feel better for even having written that. What are your suggestions for both honouring and dealing with your suffering? I’d love to hear them.
Competition results
Now, one way of healing ourselves is sharing with others, so I’m delighted to announce that I’ve drawn names out of the hat and two FREE places on Magpie Girl’s course Power Stories go to…
Drumroll…
Kel and Sulwyn!
Congratulations, I’ll send your details to Magpie and she’ll contact you shortly. I’m SO sorry to those who were disappointed.
Main image above by D. Sharon Pruitt
Elsewhere:
I love the way in which our faiths roll into each other. We are drawing to the end of Ramadan, and Abdur Rahman explains here the importance of these last ten days and their connection with seeking forgiveness.
Meanwhile, the Jewish High Holy Days are almost upon us, beginning with the celebration of Rosh Hashanah next Wednesday, and lasting for ten days until Yom Kippur. Norman at Jewish Contemplative talks here about celebrating alone. “Each of us alone. All of us together.”
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
First, I am sorry that black clouds crossed your sky this week.
Also, thank you for a beautiful post, Tess, with many parts to savor slowly.
One thing about suffering I learned from Pema Chödron. It is to welcome the suffering rather than to push it away. To hug it in a way, to nurture it like an abused woman, a spaced out homeless. To cry with it. To feel the pain rather than to hold it at arms’ length.
Finally, thank you for acknowledging the black clouds here.
(((((((((((((((Tess))))))))))))))
(((((((((((((((Tess)))))))))))))) — I finally figured out what this means!
I can’t think of any suggestions better than those you’ve listed here. #3 (What Does Work) definitely helps me. I’m going to add the other 6 strategies to my coping kit. No, change that to thrivival kit.
Thanks, Tess, for this very practical and compassionate advice.
My plan for the day is to spend it walking alone in the forest – there is no restorative like nature.
Ta, Tess. I so appreciate just what I needed to hear and to consider today. Your 3 links for listening and dancing to brought me to happy tears. I wonder if everyone everywhere could stand shoulder to shoulder with everyone else just for a while. Just to show have very connected we all are, that no one is really alone, and that someone else is just a word away. After all, we’re all in this together.
Within ourselves, it’s essential to be okay to less than perfect in body, mind, health, energy, and everything else. Letting yourself feel your pain, disappointment, grief, frustration (please supply appropriate word) gives you permission to deal with it.
I also take a walk outside. I look and listen and am soon reminded that all of nature is growing and being itself as it was created to be and that I should do the same. After all, “consider the lilies …..”
Wishing you well! ((((((hugs))))))
@Claire, thank you. I just went to get Pema Chodron from my bookshelf and she is not there! I must have lent her to someone – now to try and work out who!
@Elaine, I only recently figured out that all the brackets were hugs. I saw it one day on Facebook and it just clicked. Can I just say that I love hugs, even virtual ones, they are very special!
@Polli, oh yes, the natural world, how could I have forgotten?
@Barbara Anne, glad you enjoyed the links, and YES, feeling these things does give us permission to deal with them.
Tess – I’m sorry to hear you’re having some struggles. {{hugs}}
One of the things I need to do if I’m ruminating on a problem too much is change my environment. I tend to stay inside when I do that so even a trip out to sit on the blacony with a favorite drink can change my mood a bit. But even if I don’t go out opening the windows, putting on music, burn some incense tends to help shake me out of the rumination.
((((((Tess)))))))) – I love that I have been able to give you live hugs too.
Sitting with you in solidarity in the midst of the sorrow. Love your suggestions. I have had a hard week as well and been allowing it to be what it is, being gentle with myself. Sending you lots of love across the sea.
Hi Tess,
I never enjoy reading about a friend’s darker days but that is NOT to say that I don’t WANT to hear about those days…..sharing them and having someone else listen w/o advice, I think, is a very good thing – so, thanks for sharing.
Good positive advice you’ve given here and I will do well to remember it when those moments surely will come around my way.
xoxoxo
oh man did this post resonate Tess – and I love your line about Polyanna on Prozac
being on floodwatch for the past 24hrs, we’ve literally been under physical black clouds, but the mental ones you also refer to have raised their head …”selfish us, we don’t want to get flooded, but look at our friends in Christchurch who just survived an earthquake . . . and the others in our state who have not been so lucky and had water wash through their homes”, so your reminder to honour our own trials gave me permission to “feel” and “allow” what is a current issue for me
your list of what doesn’t work and what helps is succinct and a handy little toolbox [listening to Angela Mayou recite her Rise prose was such a delight] – so glad to hear that the process of writing them out helped lift your black clouds a little
reading my name in the winners list certainly blew some clouds away, dried up the rain and let some little rays of sunshine in here. I am so excited and thrilled to receive this gift – thank you for being a conduit of such joy
@kimberley, yes that’s a good idea. I often try and blast through long working days on caffeine but find that if I can take even ten minutes for a walk outside at lunchtime it does a huge amount of good.
@Abbey, thank you, me too (about the hugs). I’m sorry for the situation with Tune.
@SS, thank you, I liked your qualification of never enjoying reading etc., I could almost hear you saying it. Which is weird because I feel like we’ve met in real life even though we haven’t. Must be that Kayce’s influence!
@kel, yes I was rather proud of the Pollyana on Prozac! I do like a bit of alliteration. I’ve been reading about the earthquake and the flooding in your area and glad to hear you are OK – hope it remains so.
Haven’t been here before but found this page through ‘Abbey of the Arts’ where I am awaiting the commencement of a course.
I smiled as I read your list of things one should not do! Have probably had the attitude which leads to doing those things for many years. Despite trying, could never lift myself out of quite profound greyness.
I am interested in what you say about acknowledging one’s own pain. I’ve never quite known how to do this and have mostly tried to keep going with a brave face. I have always been afraid that I might fall apart or drown in self-pity. Lately, however, I have been able to acknowledge that some things simply happened and I buried them.
Now I feel, somewhat tentatively, that I am being asked to gently uncover these things, hold them in my hands and then put them aside.
So this might be might my journey over the next few months. I have an image of being on a path through a forest. I can stop and uncover these pieces of the past along the way. I am now always in safe country and light draws me forward. I can sense the company of spiritual friends.
Thank you for helping me to lift my head again.
Kate, welcome and thank you so much for visiting and commenting. I know that you will find the course at Abbey of the Arts enriching.
I had to smile at your phrase “keep going with a brave face”. Another blogging friend calls that “stoic chick”. I’ve done that a lot. But not smiling at all at your fear of falling apart. It’s a very real fear – the owning of emotion can be powerful and very frightening.
Warmest wishes on your forest path.
Tess –
I see that you “have been through” the dark clouds. May you enjoy sunny days now. Your blog continues to be a source of light for me.
Thanks.
(and when I am feeling less contemplative – my pain often lifts with way – to-much chocolate or a good cry) .
Come to think of it- cultivating more gratitude and thanking others also helps!
Laurie, thank you for this lovely comment – and a good cry does it for me as well! Plus the gratitude.
Hi Tess, I found this really helpful. XX
J – thank you, I’m glad. xx
Tess. I’m so happy I found this awsome website. I suffer with major depression. I will visit every day and read other peoples views and pray I stick to it and get up every day and think positive. God directed me here for a reason. You will be hearing from me. Thanks!
Shawna, thanks so much for visiting and for commenting. I’m sorry to hear about your depression. Something that several people visiting here struggle with. I wonder if you might also find Milton’s blog Don’t Eat Alone helpful – he struggles. I enjoyed this post of his a couple of years back: http://donteatalone.blogspot.com/2008/06/i-have-decided.html
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