In the last few days, I’ve found myself talking quite a bit about suffering with friends, even relative strangers.

Sometimes the conversation drifts philosophically to the concept of suffering itself. But more times than not, the suffering we discuss is very specific and personal: the acute effects of experiencing loss of life, loving relationships gone awry, wreaking mental and emotional havoc within.

Having endured it myself (who hasn’t!), I’m grateful and humble that I can discuss suffering and try to offer my advice while not, at this point and place in my life, experiencing a devastatingly heavy burden of pain, depression or heartache.

Something sort of profound that happens when these sorts of discussions take place. I feel their pain — I feel deeply connected to their pain. Maybe the effect is a surge of subconscious memories bubbling to the forefront of my mind — ghosts of suffering long since buried suddenly resurrected, rising once more in hopes of offering someone else a lesson of hope and perseverance and overcoming.

How to Read This

This piece is an open letter to anyone who is suffering.

I’ve split a wonderful quote on suffering by psychotherapist Thomas Moore into six block-quoted segments, which serves as a greater narrative throughout. This letter is not intended for any one person or to help with any particular situation. I write it attempting to summon some bit of Truth woven in our shared human consciousness, and thus it should speak to anyone about anything.

As I first discussed in last December’s post, Strongheart: Harvesting Compassion in the Faces of Strangers, I believe that an open heart — any compassionate soul — connects incredibly deeply and incredibly quickly with other human beings through suffering. Suffering is one of humanity’s common denominators: it sheds labels and cuts to the core of our Being. As we all endure suffering, we are indelibly connected by it.

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An Open Letter to a Suffering Soul

“The dark night of the soul is a profoundly good thing. …”

Dear Friend,

Love surrounds you, always.

In times like these, it certainly doesn’t feel it. Amid suffering you feel blinded to any and all light — even as the sun shines brightly through your windowsill. In times like these your spirit is stagnant, your heart beats just to beat — not because it has cause, or hope, or good reason to keep on.

And yet love surrounds you always.

I can hear you quipping, “That’s easy for you to say…”, and indeed it is. In life is it easy to speak from experience when the experience has long since passed. So, too, is it easy to speak of “ideals” and “wants” and “shoulds”, especially without the intimate knowledge of the suffering you have been chosen to endure.

But suffering is just that. It is chosen.

We suffer by our choice, or we suffer by the choices of others, or we suffer by the choice of fate… destiny… God… or life itself. And although your suffering is completely overwhelming right now, the magic of time slowly unburdens all pains — affording us the opportunity to reflect, to learn, to grow, and to turn suffering into vital lessons. These irreplaceable lessons teach us how to attain the single most elusive pursuit in the history of humankind: purposeful living.

True happiness.

… It is an ongoing spiritual process in which we are liberated from attachments and compulsions and empowered to live and love more freely. …

You see, every event in our lives serves significant purpose — each moment, each day, each experience; whether glorious and loving or devastating and painful. Every gracious moment of tearful joy is, at its core, remarkably similar to each forced-upon feeling of a victimization and suffering by a heartless and chaotic world. The effects — how we feel — are distant. But the cause What causes

… Sometimes this letting go of old ways is painful, occasionally even devastating. But this is not why the night is called ‘dark.’ …

Every terrible feeling, every bout of debilitating depression, every instance of suffering is a genuine opportunity for something newer and better. As stepping upon fiery coals surges forth an uncontrollable, instinctive reaction to run and escape the pain; suffering, heartache, depression, are humanity’s natural means to propel a mental-emotional surge of conscious change.

… The darkness of the night implies nothing sinister, only that the liberation takes place in hidden ways, beneath our knowledge and understanding. …

Suffering is the fire beneath our feet that sets a storm of instinctive reactions in our brains to escape, to run, to live, to change. The burden of our suffering is so severe because pushing our thinking minds to the brink of overwhelming, total collapse demands immediate action. This is the feeling of a breaking point, when “something has to give.”

What nature intends to break, I believe, is not our will to live. It’s counter logical for human instinct to ever push a human being to self-destruct — such is the incomprehensible yet prevalent tragedy of suicide.

Nature, I believe, intends to break the human Ego.

… It happens mysteriously, in secret, and beyond our conscious control. …

We suffer to reduce our individual, egoic perceptions of Self — the labels, the titles, what we “do for a living”, and who we “think” we are. Amid such unbelievably heavy sorrow, suffering reduces our egotistical self-perceptions and returns us to a purer state.

A humbled state. A vulnerable state.

We feel far from invincible; we feel that we’re crumbling. We feel far from any job title’s description; we feel only raw human emotion. We feel far from any thing or any one person being able to alleviate our pain, give us pure joy, or fill the void of our sadness. The labels are gone. Our ego is hurt. Money and possessions are meaningless. Our ego reels. All of the unnecessary perceptions of “who we are” and judgmental thinking patterns about others are reduced to rubble. Our ego is silent.

Instead there is only our true Self.

And who we each are at the core of our Being as humans is a simple, caring and compassionate being, longing for fulfillment and happiness in life.

… For that reason it can be disturbing or even scary, but in the end it always works to our benefit.

But the burden of suffering doesn’t only serve to destroy our own ego. When a compassionate soul sees suffering in another human being, the egoic walls of self-defense are dissolved. We see others who suffers and innately lend our hands as best we can, realizing that we are not very different. Instead, we see ourselves in each other.

As love binds us, suffering binds us. And that is why we must suffer.

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Flickr photo credit: Shandi-lee

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EARLY IN THE MONTH OCTOBER IN 2010, I made my first visit to Walden Pond.

I took the short trek to Concord, Massachusetts alone, feeling compelled to escape both the world and my own mind. I had been feeling beckoned to escape, to run, to seek out answers in solitude to unasked questions.

Can we find answers to questions that have not been asked? Perhaps we may only stumble upon such answers by opening ourselves most fully and abandoning the questioning altogether. I began to hike the trails with little intent of discovery, though I hoped that the historic pond made famous by Thoreau might reveal something to me.

Society, Society

With a simple folded map I guided myself along the pond’s narrow and path, wired upon both sides as if for herding dumb cattle. Dozens of metal posted signs further perpetuated this idea:

“Do not venture off of path”
“Erosion warning”
“Disobedience punishable by fine” “Lifeguard not on duty”
“Bacteria levels not tested beyond marked dates”
“Shallow waters—no diving”

And so on… and so on… Growing disdainful, I wondered what Thoreau would now make of his beloved Walden Pond. Assessing the topography, I carried on through the trails, intent still to find solitude and seclusion from my head, the world, and the few herded-cattle tourists whom I walked beside on the trails with polite, tight-lipped smiles.

Nearly halfway through Pond  Path, I veered upon an ominous sounding “Fire Road” trail that led somewhere beyond the hills to what was called Emerson’s Cliff — which quickly became my new destination. I could still hear the hum of the nearby highway, the buzz of planes overhead and the roar of the rails so horrifyingly close. My mind thus wandered from Thoreau and Emerson to Alexander Supertramp — the young adventurer who journeyed far Into the Wild — his discontent, his longing for peace and true happiness. Such a drastic concept seemed peculiarly logical.

To Seek Solitude

I ascended Fire Road with ease and a quick step, removing my outermost outerwear to embrace my blood’s warmth against the crisp autumn air. Then, a sharp decline. I slid with caution down the rocky path, grasping at tree limbs and branches and wishing I had acquired a walking stick by now.

Then, halfway down the steep hill I stopped upon a sudden—beyond a bird’s chirp and maybe two chipmunks bantering among the leaves, there was quiet. Total, unfettered quiet. The hill had now blocked the hum  of the highways, there were no planes above or trains passing by. I had even eluded the cowherd fences: finally, peace. Finally, solitude. Is this True Happiness?

A smile overcame me as I paced through the isolated trail and around a stagnant-watered swamp, watching happily as some black-and-white warblers defied the laws of gravity against tall tree walls. Referring to my crumpled map — which to the lone hiker I realized is more valuable than even his Bible — I climbed Emerson’s Cliff, wondering (and so hoping) that its name held true reference to Ralph Waldo, himself. Upon these cliffs, I am overcome with contentment. I am happy, relieved, feeling unburdened by the constant stream of thought that I needed to escape; the eyes of the world that I felt compelled to evade, just for a moment.

The pace of my mind — the incessant thinking and worry and discerning and deciphering — was lost among the pace of my footsteps upon rock and soil.

Instead, my natural senses surged forth. My hearing was sharper. My vision, keen. The childhood memories — of smells of fallen leaves and evergreen needles and crunching branches beneath my shoes — flooded to the forefront. Is this true happiness? I wondered, Real peace? Had I found the love of Thoreau upon the peaks of Emerson; the Truth sought widely by Supertramp?

Two Strangers

Completing Emerson’s Cliffs, I returned in a loop to the Pond Trail and, so peaceful and happy now, submitted myself to be herded once more.

Circling a small cove of the pond, I crossed paths with a camera-wielding duo of tourists upon the trail. The woman, middle aged and donning a large-lensed black camera, retreated a few paces from her presumable husband to engage a photographic viewpoint by which I just happened to be passing. Before she paused to aim, I happily remarked, “Really nice vantage point, here.” “Isn’t it lovely!” she exclaimed, a subtle accent garnishing the pep in her voice. I walked onward, and but a moment later, the husband with an accent thicker than hers, approached me with a smile and asked, “Does this path lead all the way around?

“Yes,” I told him, “Just stay in between these fences and you’ll find your way back to the start!” He graciously thanked me as I walked away.

Although my feet were moving, my mind paused once more to observe what was occurring within: I was utterly overcome with peace, with joy. What happiness I had felt before upon Emerson’s Cliffs exploded, exponentially even, with the short, pleasant moment that I had shared with those two strangers. It felt as if I was beaming with positivity; overcome with lightness. I recalled one of Supertramp’s final revelations on life before his untimely passing: “Happiness is only real when shared.”

Happiness Begins Within

Happiness often begins within; we must choose it, be open to it, pursue it, allow it, accept it. But real joy — true happiness, fulfillment, contentment — cannot be made real by ourselves alone, I am quite sure. Happiness is shared. What contentment we discover within can only be maximized through interactions with men and women around us — by living among the lives of others.

This much I had suspected.

But, on that day, Walden Pond certainly reaffirmed it, leaving little for me to ever doubt again.

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This piece is featured in my new, free e-book collaborated with 9 other Twitter-based writers. It’s called THE HAPPINESS CATALYST — read amazing stories to inspire social connectedness and genuine community-building as the basis for renewed happiness. Download it here!

One subject that I continually revisit (and really try to articulate in many different ways) on DaveUrsillo.com is that each human being is unique, specific, distinct, and special.

Just as no two human faces are exactly the same, no two human beings are exactly the same. Similarly, every person is unique insofar as we each possess a distinct and different set of interests, natural talents and skills, and passions that create a special person.

Beyond Our Individuality…

Each person contains within themselves a world of potential for “spiritual” growth (a “human” spirituality, or a nonreligious spirit based in compassion, goodness and love toward others) and inner development that, with time, can help us find true happiness and fulfillment.

However, I believe that one of the greatest causes of our personal suffering – suffering within the confines of our mind — is believing that the pain we have individually endured is particularly unique to us; that what we have been forced to struggle through and overcome in our lives is specific and unmatched to what anyone else has endured.

In other words, we perceive our pain to be intrinsically different somehow… as if our anguish is completely unique and distinct, no different than how we are as distinct human beings. The result is that we feel particularly overburdened by our suffering: that no one could truly understand what difficulties we’ve been through. The pains that we have endured thus makes us feel isolated, alone.

But the truth is that the human species — the entirety of the human population — endures anguish and hardships in life. Everyone. And, because pain is such a widely shared trait or “affliction” of the human species, it’s as if there exists… One Suffering… that each of us similarly endures to various degrees.

Truly, if more people were to be open and honestly share the deeply personal experiences of their anguish and pain, I believe that we would be amazed and relieved to recognize that we are not alone in our hardships.

Each human being is unique, and surely no two men or women have endured the exact same life or personal history or experiences of pain and anguish. Nevertheless, when we focus less on the differences of our suffering and recognize more that we all share “One Suffering;” our wounds heal faster, our pains subside quicker, and we gain a wonderful and renewed connection to others around us and humanity at large.

6 Hardships That We All Endure

1) Loss

Without death, there could be no life. But that reality is hardly a comfort to those who have suffered the loss of a loved one. Loss is a piece of our One Suffering: everyone endures loss.

However, the chances are great that if you open up to family and friends — immersing yourself in the presence of others, rather than running away — you will hear their own stories of loss and hardship, and in understanding their similarities, will no longer feel isolated and alone. Hearing others’ stories creates a bond of shared suffering; although you do not want to know that others have suffered like you, there is some solemn comfort in knowing that we all share One Suffering.

2) Heartache

As a 24-year-old guy, I meet many of young men and women who have endured terrible heartache. What I came to notice when speaking to so many heartbroken young adults is this: if we have endured but one bad breakup, we share heartache as part of One Suffering.

“Everyone,” I found myself telling friends, “who is our age and is single, has suffered from terrible heartache.”

The reason that we perceive our own heartache to be the worst out of anyone else’s, of course, is because the heartache has happened to us directly. With heartache, we have been hurt us so deeply and had our lives affected so severely. Focus less upon the differences of our emotional pain and recognize that everyone suffers heartache.

3) Sadness

We take the anguish and pain of sadness for granted because we recognize that sadness is a natural human emotion and that every human being has felt, does feel, and will feel sadness in their lives. Sadness is a natural component of our One Suffering.

If you are dealing with sadness, anxiety or depression, share your feelings of sadness with others — whether friends, family, strangers, or a doctor or therapist. Expressing the emotional anguish that we are battling is often one of the very first steps to overcoming it.

4) Fear

Every human being encounters fear. We fear the unknown, we fear what hurts us, we fear change, we fear what cannot be changed, we fear death. Fear is shared as a part of humanity’s One Suffering. We each encounter and must endure fear.

As President Roosevelt once said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” Fear is nothing more but another emotion. When we reject fear as a form of personal agony or torment, and recognize that all human beings encounter fear in their lives, we begin to appreciate that fear is just another emotion that we can endure and survive by our choosing.

5) Conflict

Every human being will endure conflict. Whether the conflict is on a major scale (such as war), or a minor scale (such as personal arguments and confrontations), conflict is a natural cause and component of humanity’s One Suffering. However, we can overcome the personal emotional pain caused by conflict by communicating with others.

Instead of focusing upon our differences, intently reflect and discuss our similarities. Despite their physical and cultural differences, two people from opposing sides of the Earth can come together and bond over similar suffering caused by conflict.

6) Failure

A major cause of personal, emotional pain is failure — whether it’s a fear of failure or a fear of rejection, or the type of crippling insecurity and doubt that naturally result from failing and being criticized. We are bound to encounter failure and criticism in every aspect of our lives, from friendships and relationships to business and academics.

Failure should not be the cause of great personal anguish because everyone encounters and endures failure.

Although failure is not enjoyable, to say the least, utilize failure as the means to assess your efforts, energy and focus. Share (don’t hide) your failures from others — when you discuss your shortcomings, others will open up and share their own shortcomings. You just might learn how to overcome your suffering and use failure to your benefit.

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Flickr Photo Credit: Andi Jetaime

Are you a “counterweight,” someone who helps balance friends and loved ones during their times of need and emotional instability? Or do you unintentionally exacerbate someone else’s emotional imbalance?

In Find Balance through a Steadier Range of Emotion, the first part of this two part series, we discussed the concept of “balance” and  how to discover and develop a stronger sense of balance within ourselves.

We also learned about scientific research that indicates that with practice our brains can actually physically rewire parts of itself and “learn” to be happier, even more “emotionally balanced.” With this possibility, we can theoretically condition the workings of our minds — our thoughts, reactions, triggers, and so on — to find a more consistent “range” of emotional balance.

Now, we ask how we can help bring others into a steadier emotional balance. One simple way to help bring balance to those whom we care about is to function as a “counterweight.” Whether a loved one or a friend is riding an unstable emotional high or a dangerous emotional low, your words and actions can help bring someone in need into a more balanced and healthier emotional state. And as Renegades, why wouldn’t we?!

Showing Compassion Without Offering “Self-Serving Sympathy”

When a friend or loved one presents a problem or recent hardship to us, the natural reaction is to show sympathy and compassion. But our reaction must depend on the situation: if the situation is one of loss of life and grievance, acting as a counterbalance is rather “black-and-white” or “cut-and-dry.” We realize that for all the hardship and suffering that our friend is enduring, as a counterbalance we must offer steadfast support, optimism, endurance, and stability to offset and support his time of uncertainty and emotional instability.

In situations that are less objective and more subjective, as with a dispute between boyfriend/girlfriend or family members, acting as a counterbalance is much more difficult. What can tend to happen in such “shades-of-gray” situations is that our sympathy and compassion can unwittingly and unintentionally exacerbate one’s emotional instability. An example:

A longtime friend of yours comes to you crying after a dispute with her boyfriend. After coming to understand the situation, you don’t believe that anyone is fully to blame: you can see shared faults from both the boyfriend and the girlfriend in the dispute.

Our natural tendency in this kind of a situation would be to sympathize with our longtime friend, even when we realize that she might be partly or wholly to blame for the altercation. In such a situation, neglecting to become a counterbalance to the friend threatens your show of support and compassion to become little else than self-serving sympathy that wrongly entrenches the friend into her unfounded position of exaggerated emotions. Is there a way that you could gently interject prudence, objectivity and reasoning rather than self-serving sympathy?

How to Balance the “Highs” Without Being a Downer

Few of us would ever want to be a counterbalance to a friend or loved one who is happy, let alone ecstatic about news they have received or something they have recently achieved. Of course, when someone we care about is experiencing happiness, there is little cause or reason to undertake the role of a “Debbie Downer,” as made infamous by the Saturday Night Live character portrayed by Rachel Dratch.

However, there are certainly instances where one will need to inject elements of simple logic, foresight, good-judgment and prudence to counterbalance a friend or loved one’s emotional high that is causing them to act irrationally. Take this scene from NBC’s television show The Office as an example of coworkers of Michael Scott (played by Steve Carell) who offer discretion and reasoning as a counterbalance to their boss who believes that he already has received a job promotion based upon a mistaken assumption:

Michael: No, no, no. You know what? It’s a done deal. I basically have the job already. There’s nothing she can do to stop it now. Plus, I already sold my condo.
Oscar: Michael…
Kevin: What?
Angela: Why?
Oscar: I’m sorry, that just doesn’t make sense.
Angela: Who gave you that advice?
Kevin: Yeah, Michael you should never sell your condo…
Michael: Well I’ll have to buy another place.
Oscar: You’re not sure that you have the job.
Michael: I sold it on eBay. The buyer was very motivated, as was I. It went for eighty percent of what I paid. Sold in record time.

Happiness is About Establishing Balance

Many of us falsely assume that Happiness cannot be maintained because it requires too much intense concentration and effort to ever be plausible. As Thomas Merton stated in his quote above, happiness is not a matter of intensity, but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony. When we make concerted efforts to recognize our behaviors, emotional swings and triggers, we can gradually become more emotionally stable and shorten the swings of erratic emotions that we are certain to encounter from day to day.

Furthermore, as we begin to condition the workings of our minds to be more emotionally balanced, we grasp a better sense of how to provide balance for the ones we love and care about by embodying the role of a “counterweight.” Acting as a counterweight not only provides balance for others, but contributes to our collective happiness by intently helping establish emotional order, rhythm and harmony. 

Have you ever embodied the role of a “counterweight” for someone in need? How have you gone about providing balance? What techniques or strategies do you employ? Leave me a comment below!

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I learned a long time ago that the best way to alleviate one’s own emotional pain and suffering is to–perhaps, counter-intuitively–not focus on ourselves, our pain or its causes; but instead to focus on others.

Specifically, when we focus on giving to others, the emotional anguish with which we’re struggling so mightily suddenly becomes weaker. It lessens and lessens and gradually fades away completely.

Is focusing upon giving to others simply a method of avoidance? Are we choosing to ignorantly run away from the causes of our pain and anguish? Hardly.

Choosing to focus upon giving to others instead of harping upon our pains and sorrows is something much greater. To give–especially in times of great personal trial and difficulty–is to foster an immovable sense of love. This love provides us with a new-found strength in life; one capable of overcoming any negative thought or destructive emotion that we may ever encounter.

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Giving to Others is a Way to Give Back to Ourselves

The negativity that results from trials, challenges, pain and suffering in life self-perpetuates. Negative thinking and negative emotions beget more of the same; before long, negativity can cause us to spiral into a deep, dark place, from which we fear we might never reemerge.

Although the idea may, at its inception, seem completely counter-intuitive, the truth is that when we concentrate and focus upon giving to others, the pain of our suffering begins to weaken before disappearing completely.

The irony is something beautiful. As we suffer, we become entrapped in our suffering. We cannot think of or focus on anything but ourselves and our pain.

And yet, when we make a concerted effort to focus on others–especially, giving to others every day, even through seemingly trivial acts of kindness and smiles and good deeds–the pain and suffering in which we have become entrenched begins leave us.

On our worst days, inner pain and anguish make us feel like we’re drowning; barely able to keep our heads above turbulent waves and rushing waters. By intently focusing on giving to others, we suddenly find a life-preserver floating beside us. We realize that we won’t drown. We realize that we will life. We realize that we have found new purpose to swim onward.

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