What is suffering?

1. Do you know why suffering happens? According to System Outlook we suffer, not because we physically lose someone or something like love, health, home or our fortune. We suffer because we cannot comprehend the loss, and we cannot imagine how we can live happily without it.

2. What is suffering? Suffering is an emotional resistance to what is.

3. To understand what is suffering, first we should differentiate between pain and suffering and agree that pain is related to physical conditions of the body and suffering is related to our emotions.

4. Suffering and God are inseparable, because suffering as the inability to accept adversities triggers people to turn to God for understanding and peace. Rarely do people come to a strong religious belief without feeling a deep need to understand and accept the unfairness of their life.

5. Religious and spiritual vantage points allow a person to embrace life and death, happiness and sorrow in one harmonious totality, and to give people the whole picture of our world and our life with the structure of developed logical connections. It doesn’t matter if such picture is based on a Buddhist, Christian or other concept.

6. What is suffering? Suffering is a state of a strong, often a chronic, emotional discomfort when a system tries rehabilitating its disturbed balance.

7. Physical pain and suffering are different things. Often when people experience physical pain over a long period of time, they get used to it; it becomes a part of their life. After they emotionally accept it and learn how to deal with it, they don’t suffer. They simply adjust to their unpleasant physical condition one way or another.

8. One typical illusion happens when people try to compare who has more suffering. It’s irrelevant to judge who suffers more. First of all, we have different sensitivity to everything: Our physical bodies react differently to cold and hot temperatures; we have different physical and emotional strengths; personalities like Martin Luther King or Viktor Frankl can survive extreme conditions like a concentration camp for years, while another person cannot cope with a depression. This is not something that a person should be ashamed of. This person just doesn’t have enough inner strength, yet.

9. There are multiple approaches and techniques that help people to deal with suffering: from medications to hypnosis. When we get the understanding of what suffering is, we are no longer slaves to our suffering; we are taking command of our body and our emotions.

10. If physical pain is the result of disturbed functions of the body; suffering is a product of our perception that we experience as strong negative emotions.

11. Until we believe that the cause for our suffering is somewhere outside of our perception we can never defeat it.

12. From the spiritual perspective “why to suffer” is not a question, as suffering can be perceived as a blessing by those who stay on the path of self-transformation. Nothing makes us grow faster than emotional pain. It either destroys us or makes us invincible.

13. If we could separate our emotional suffering from the problems that cause it, we would have no suffering as it doesn’t exist without a reason. We could go through any challenging situation perfectly balanced, which really is a goal of any spiritual growth.

14. To defeat any suffering we have to learn how to be in charge of our emotions.

15. Suffering starts when things go the “wrong” way, or in other words, not the way we want.

16. What is suffering? Suffering is our natural emotional reaction to an “unfair” situation or the lack of balance.

17. Sometimes we ask why people constantly create more and more regulations. Because regulations prevent people from conflicts, and consequently, negative emotions and suffering.

18. If you feel emotional discomfort, don’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. It’s the worst thing you can do. It’s much better to recognize the discomfort and deal with it while it’s small. If this pain grows, sooner or later, it will destroy either your health, your relationship, or both.

19. Have courage to face any of your emotional discomforts or pains. Have strength to be honest with yourself, and be gentle and honest with others.

20. For some people the question of why to suffer is irrelevant. They create their own drama and suffer because it’s the way they get attention and feel self-important. Don’t tell them how not to suffer. They don’t want to know it.

21. Why do many people need suffering? Because for years they are trapped in the role of “big hero and sufferer.” It’s their self-identity. They have to always suffer to support this self-image.

22. Do you know who especially likes to change others? Those who always “suffer” from other people imperfections.

23. Until a person reaches a certain level of mental maturity he or she cannot comprehend the true causes of suffering. Such a person is simply not ready yet to enter the way of conscious self-growth, which starts with intention to observe and question our personal thoughts, feelings and believes.

24. Should we soften the suffering of others? Yes. It is called compassion. Compassion of saints, in many cases, was compassion to human ignorance and the inability to look at their sufferings from proactive perspectives.

25. The best way to learn how not to suffer is to consciously enter the way of spiritual transformation.

26. People got used to instant gratification of their desires so much, that they start believing they can take a pill to get away from any discomfort, pain and suffering. This is an illusion. There is no pill to rejuvenate a dirty conscience; there is no pill to fill up the inner emptiness; there is no pill to be fully satisfied with a dishonest life.

27. The food for our soul is wisdom, and like any food it must be earned. Often suffering is the price we pay for it. Otherwise we have to muffle the cry of our hungry soul with antidepressants.

28. The lack of logical connections inside the mind causes emotional discomfort. It’s the reason why any uncertainty as lack of clarity and understanding is so stressful and makes us suffer.

29. Until we intend to positively embrace new experiences, we are destined to feel overwhelmed and stressed-out while resisting new information.

30. Why to suffer, if suffering is a divine medication for human ignorance.

31. Suffering is unnecessary when souls are in a perfect alignment with God as the Universal Law of Love. Such souls have overcome suffering as an emotional attachment to unwanted conditions. They go through what is in a perfect inner harmony and balance.

31. Please don’t be confused by a suggestion that those who always look happy have reached a Buddha’s consciousness. We never know. It’s not our business to judge if people have old Buddha-like souls filled with refined wisdom; or if their souls are very young, similar to babies who are naturally happy with the simplistic pleasures of life.
If you are familiar with suffering in any form, then know: the age of your soul is somewhere in-between that of Buddha’s and a very young soul.

32. Where is God in suffering? Where is the traffic law when people suffer from collisions caused by careless driving? Similar to traffic law, God as Universal Law of Love is always with us. When we violate this Universal Law of Love with our actions, or even with our thoughts, sooner or later we suffer. It happens because every event or thought that is not in alignment with the Law of Love, takes our system out of balance, and any lack of balance is felt as emotional discomfort, which is suffering.

33. System Outlook states that suffering is caused by the desperate attempts of our mind to create new logical connections inside of our memory, between new challenging situations and things we already know in order to make sense out of current adversities. Until our mind develops these logical connections, we feel paralyzed, as we don’t know how to react to what’s going on. The lack of understanding or acceptance of “what is” brings strong psychological discomfort in forms of depressions and anxieties that can possess people for years.

34. Have those questions ever burned in your mind: “God, where are you?” “This life is unfair!” “Why does it happen to me?” When we know the answers, we don’t suffer anymore.

35. Who knows how not to suffer? Those who know what is suffering and who have learned through suffering how to be wise and stronger than any pain or adversity.

36. You may ask why suffering is so painful. Because pain and suffering are the best natural motivation for us to move forward and to change ourselves and any discomforting situation.

37. Suffering and pain as physical or other discomfort are very different. We will always need some level of physical or psychological discomfort in order to experientially know what is good for us and what is not. A hangover is an example how our body warns us about the damage of alcohol overdosing.
The same time, emotional suffering might be unnecessary when we intend to stay in a constant process of self-transformation and serving the Truth.