What is suffering? A bit more...

Hello Little Sister,

How are you today?  I feel my depression lifting.  I am starting to feel like I can handle things again.  I wish I understood why this happened...

I am still thinking about your post with the Dark Night of the Soul.  You listed living through:

the frustration...
the depression...
the separation...
the isolation...

I think perhaps we have both been living with this all of our lives.  Now you are living them with awareness, which allows you to feel the pain.  You see them, you prayed for them, now perhaps the best thing is to thank them, bless them and let them go...I had the image of trapped birds flying free.

When you describe living through suffering, I feel almost like you are describing drama - creating drama in order to feel alive.  It is a symptom of being raised in alcoholic chaos.  Drama, pain and suffering, are the everyday experience, and we feel incomplete without it.  When everything is calm and peaceful, we are frightened, wary, waiting for the crap to hit the proverbial fan so we can feel relaxed and comfortable.  I see this all the time with others.  It's much more difficult to see it in myself, and therefore to release.

I think you could make a good case of your medical/physical description of self-imposed suffering as applied to emotional conditions.  It would be an interesting assignment.

I thought a lot about suffering yesterday, and looked at the etymology of the word.  I also thought about poverty, because I think that religion has taken some of these virtues and redefined them in such a way as to enslave us.  I think poverty is faith - one does not need possessions because whatever is needed will manifest.  We have lost that.  We no longer trust the universe to provide.  Now we think poverty is being hungry, ignored, not as good as...it is God's punishment. I believe the same happened to the concept of suffering.

I love synchronicity.  I am currently reading the book Abraham, which I took from your back-of-the-car library.  And just last night I read a piece about suffering.

...in doing so, (they) altered the notion of suffering that had existed fpr centuries.  In antiquity, the children if Israel suffered because they disobeyed God's law...By contrast, medieval Jews began to see suffering as a sign of God's favor rather than his fury.  Exemplary individuals are often asked to suffer for their righteous behavior...Hardship is an indication of worthiness, not sin, and only strengthens those who are faithful.
                                                                                         -Bruce Feiler

It goes on to talk about creation of the victim.  The victim is holy.

Originally suffer came from the Proto-Indo-European language as a combination of sub - under, and ferre - to carry.  It means, to me, to to bear something.  It is not good or bad.  While I was thinking about it, I thought about getting two puppies at the same time. I had to lose two dogs within a short time.  I considered losing Grammy, and some of our cousins - we don't all come to Earth at the same time, we don't all leave at the same time.  The suffering, the too-much-to-bear comes in the separation.  By the 13th Century to suffer included allowing something to continue, and by the 14th Century, it meant to meekly submit.  That just reaks of religion to me.  It feels like part of the path to enslavemetn.

Not sure where this is going, but I wanted to share...

My youngest is home, and so I am off to Grandma-land!!'

I love you!!

Clare