Physician Healer
Releasing Pain and Suffering
“Everything is temporary,” I recently heard this reminder from one of Kyle Cease’s (comedian-turned personal growth author/speaker) weekly live calls. Whatever we label as bad or good —it’s all transient and will disappear eventually in its own time. Whatever way we label the events that we witness during any part of our life journey remains in subjective format, originating from our internal perception and bias that birthed itself from our emotions attached to all of our cumulative experiences and are not considered universal truths.
Owning up to that which is temporary is a dance with a double-edged sword. We tend not to mind so much the unpleasant occurrences as long as they possess temporary status. The saying,
“This, too, shall pass,”
is a cliché directed at extending a gesture of comfort to someone. On the other hand, what of the good times? How can we make that last forever? Aye, there’s the rub. No button to push exists in which we can cherry pick to keep one experience and conveniently discard the other.
To emphasize the advantage of temporary-ness is simply that it won’t last. All that we fear, dread and worry about have a time frame. So, whatever irks us at the moment will cease to exist at some point. The disadvantage also revolves around the same fact of being temporary. How many times have we all been at that place where we wish we could bottle that single moment of time and lift the lid whenever we want to re-experience that specific moment?
Either way, whether we fear the future and regret the past or we yearn for the future and long for the past, these are parts of the egoic constructs keeping us from being in the present moment, of enjoying what really matters at the end — living in the now.
I’ve often reminded people that the past, present and future are like rooms where in the room of the past, none of the paintings will change because whatever happened has already happened. There is no movement in this room. It’s done. On the contrary, the room of the future contains paintings that are blurred because nothing there has happened yet.
Lastly, we approach the room of the present and as we speak, the once indistinguishable paintings of the future’s uncertainty, as quickly as they are being created, are rapidly transported to the room of the past. All possibilities exist in the now. Everything you want to do is done in the now. It is the only spatial time that is available for us to create. In fact, it is helpful to remember that if we have the sincere urge to attempt to control the future, we must remember that it starts with a decision we make in the now.
To illustrate this, let’s say we want to built a blue birdhouse. If we project ourselves into the worried future, we would be consumed with fear about whether or not we could find the materials and the paint. If we regressed into the past, we would say to ourselves that the last time we tried, we could not find the materials or the paint so we would give up assuming that the past predicts the future. If we become aware and present this very moment, we would realize that all we have to do is take a trip to the store and look for the blue paint, wood panels, hammer, nails, glue, brushes, etc. The choice to be in the present moment has transformative powers into the future.
Of course when we speak of the past, present and future, this involves linear time, a concept many have written, that is only found here in this earthly existence. Quantum physics continues to explore the possibility that once we leave the earth realm, time and space as we know it behave very differently and that time actually ceases to exist.
Pain and suffering tend to occur when we are anywhere but here in the present moment. Attending to the past creates disappointment and regret, and mental chatter about different scenarios that should’ve happened. Curating the future leads us to perpetual anxiety, fear, and mental chatter about how’s, what-if’s and if-then’s. Remember — we control nothing about our lives and if you still think you do, then you are living in an illusion created by your egoic mind.
Dr. Srikumar Rao (Professor of Columbia University Mindfulness Business School) speaks always about how we may not be able to avoid pain but that suffering is optional and is created by the egoic mental chatter. It is the stories that draw us into the quagmire of persistent suffering.
A somewhat controversial story he has told which cleverly illustrates the power of the mind in its role of suffering showcases the concept that it is not the facts or the events themselves that cause suffering but what our minds do with them.
To loosely paraphrase, there was a couple whose son was away in college. He was expected to come home for Thanksgiving but due to other obligations he took on, he told his parents a month prior that he would visit them the weekend after. So, his parents decided to invite some friends over for a Thanksgiving celebration where there was plenty of food, drinks and dancing the entire weekend. They had a fabulous time and the party was a success.
In the middle of the following week, the parents received a letter from the dean of the school that there was an accident the day before Thanksgiving and that unfortunately, their son died on that day. As expected, the parents became deeply distraught with grief. Dr. Rao points out that the son died before Thanksgiving. This is a fact. The parents had a great time over Thanksgiving weekend. When the letter arrived, their son’s death had already occurred before they received the letter. Therefore, the death itself did not cause the pain and suffering. It was knowledge about the death that became internalized emotionally in the mind that caused the subsequent grief.
The purpose of the above example is not to showcase the obvious or make light of such a tragedy but only to illustrate the specific point that suffering begins in the mind after knowledge of events is introduced to it. This may require some time to reflect upon. It took me awhile to fully grasp this point.
What I have found to be the most impactful for me to stay present and to be in a state of peace is to remember 2 things — everything is temporary and every moment is perfect. From there, I remember and trust that meditation is actively changing my internal status no matter what or how I feel after sitting in silence and that the more I sit, the more the old layers shed themselves, opening up space for things to come in that will prove expansive for the soul.
Kyle Cease continues on to say that we perpetually go to the future imagining all the things that will never happen only to cut off our ability and privilege of experiencing all that there is in the now. The present time contains no worries, just a vast space of possibilities. We are the originators of everything we fear and embrace for the external world mirrors who we are inside and aligns with our energy or chi.
Too often we blame others or what’s going on in the external for why we feel the way we do, when in fact, perhaps that is how we deceive ourselves from getting to intimately know who we truly are by letting the old false masks fall off and finally granting ourselves permission to emerge from the uncertain darkness of the cocoon into the light with our new wings.
Meditation and Relaxation
1) Sit up comfortably and breathe in slowly through pursed lips for a count of 7, hold for 3 then exhale freely through the mouth for a count of 7, and hold for 3. Remember to track your breath down to the belly while visualizing yourself in a peaceful place. When you exhale visualize all the day’s heaviness releasing itself. Repeat 2 more times.
2) Access and gently tap the chest points (again, you can stay with one Meridian point, rotate through 2 or 3 or all of the basic 9 commonly used) with one or both sets of finger tips while breathing gently and say the following intentional statements listed below the pics:
(If you prefer the color photo version of all 9 commonly used Meridian Access points, please refer to the Oct 23, 2021 Issue 36 “Coming Home.”)
—Why am I able to release all my pain no matter what?
—Why do I remain so grounded no matter what?
—Why is there so much abundance in my life no matter what?
—Why am I able to release all my suffering no matter what?
—Why am I increasingly conscious and aware no matter what?
—Why am I able to release my old patterns and stories no matter what?
—Why am I able to feel peaceful no matter what?
—Why do I feel so much lighter now no matter what?
3) Conclude with breath work by repeating number 1)
4) If you are doing this at bedtime, you can just lie down and go to sleep.
5) Remember that just because you may not feel that anything is happening, trust me that a lot is being cleared out and you’re only going to realize it when synchronicities start to show up in your life, strange and unexpected things.
6) Always journal even if you have just 1 or 2 lines to write. Record your gratitudes and wins big and small. Be clear about your goals. By writing them over and over, you are reinforcing the ideas via specific thoughts. Remember that many small ones add up to one big one.
7) Exercise, stretch, and get enough sleep. Food is medicine so make sure you incorporate foods of as many different vibrant colors as possible, choosing fresh organic whole foods whenever possible. Be sure to always let your healthcare team know what you’re eating. If you enjoyed what you just read, please click SHARE with friends or family, SUBSCRIBE for free and leave a COMMENT about this article and how it helped you.
Thank you for reading! I hope you were able to take away at least 1 meaningful point. Until next week may you all find that peace and joy are always within you.
With love and gratitude,
Celeste Amaya, MD
