My Journey with Suffering

Suffering is a formidable word. It primarily comes up in settings to express conditions of war, oppression, imprisonment, and/or pain. In other words, it is mostly expressed as an extrinsically enforced state, rather than an intrinsic one. In doing so, we underestimate the pain experienced by those who suffer from mental noise, whether linked to a mental diagnosis or not.

We do not have to necessarily get into mental disorders to know what mental noise is; it’s a daily occurrence for most of us. If you ever try to meditate or sit still to fully witness the present, you're probably quick to realize the level of difficulty of the task, and ultimately, the futility of that effort. This realization in of itself is so powerful as it alludes to the mental noise and narratives that we create for ourselves on a daily basis. 

Sometimes these narratives are constructive: they allow us to feel like we deserve the best relationships or that we are really good at certain tasks, which then become self-fulfilling prophecies, as we ultimately behave as our minds tell us. But many other times, these narratives can be really destructive. Narratives such as: I’m lazy, I’m fat, I’m ugly, I don’t deserve love, I am not worthy, I am unintelligent, I am unproductive, etc... These narratives become so inherent to our day to day that in some instances, we take them to be our truth for a lifetime. 

In the last year, I met this type of suffering in a way that I never had. Some people around me did not quite understand where it was coming from, and frankly, I am not sure I fully did either. My biggest realization through it all, that has left me so perplexed, is that we really look down upon mental suffering as a society. We try our best to cover our insecurities from those around us and pretend to be “happy" all the time. Happiness is one of an infinite number of emotions. Mathematically, it seems unreasonable that that’s how we’re going to feel at all times.

Suffering is not a negative emotion, but the judgment of it is. When we judge ourselves for experiencing suffering, that’s when it becomes destructive. We have to learn to embrace suffering more as a society. In embarking on a yoga journey, I also learned that there are a plethora of tools out there to limit this suffering, to quiet the mind, and to be more observant to emotion without judgment. I hope for a world where we all acknowledge the suffering we undergo and help each other through it. In the end, suffering is what makes us human. To be afraid to speak of our truths and ask for help seems so counterintuitive to our essence.