Consider Your Body as a Construct Created by the Mind
Thoughts become the tools we use to mold and influence this construct. We aspire for our bodies to appear, function, and more importantly, feel a certain way, all of which commences with a thought or a concept.
Our thoughts influence our behaviors, and these behaviors, in turn, determine how our body reacts to the actions we command it to perform. For instance, if you constantly repeat to yourself, “I don’t like myself”, you will eventually accept it as a belief. This belief will shape your behaviors, causing you to act as if you dislike yourself. Consequently, you may place your body in situations and relationships that reflect this self-loathing, further confirming your belief.
You may also ingest substances like unhealthy food, drugs, or alcohol that align with your belief in self-loathing. Gradually, every aspect of your existence will begin to mirror this initial thought. The one companion that remains undeniably truthful with you, regardless of whether you’re ready to hear it or not, is PAIN.
Let’s make sure not to confuse pain with suffering. While pain is a neutral event, devoid of attached narratives, suffering is deeply entwined with personal stories. Pain is an inherent aspect of existence, whereas suffering is an active engagement that necessitates a conscious re-association with the circumstances surrounding pain on a repeated basis.
Indeed, pain serves as your ally in this journey. Without pain, you wouldn’t be able to perceive the harm inflicted on the lone vessel that anchors you to this earth: your physical body.
Pain is consistently honest and will never deceive you. It’s its way of grabbing your attention, signaling to you that your current path isn’t successful. Much like the need to adjust your position after prolonged sitting to ease discomfort, emotional pain serves a similar purpose. It implores you to ALTER YOUR COURSE.
The required change entails restructuring your mental patterns and beliefs that influence your behaviors. These patterns could encompass feelings of regret, worthlessness, perfectionism, guilt, shame, greed, pride, and more.
Your body flourishes when the mind is flexible and unencumbered. While the physical body is capable of enduring stress, it is designed to handle acute stress, not persistent or habitual stress. Persistent stress, often a result of detrimental mental programming, sets the body on the path to dis-ease. As the body’s integrity is compromised due to chronic mental distress, the muscular and structural systems weaken. To compensate for this weakness, the body adjusts, leading to muscular and structural imbalances, which can escalate to more severe problems like disease and system dysfunction. All of this can be traced back to negative mental programming.
Conclusion:
Pain and Suffering Are Feathers of a Different Bird
Pain, in and of itself, is not inherently negative. It can serve as an informative friend on our journey to Self-Realization and happiness. Suffering, however, is a distortion of pain — it is pain imbued with a story and ingrained into our identity. Instead of enlightening us, suffering misleads us.
When we become attached to our pain, we begin to protect it, holding it close as if it’s a precious asset. Like Gollum clinging to his “precious” ring, we become possessed by our suffering. “My own… my precious.” As strange as it might seem, suffering behaves like a parasite, draining our vitality and lulling us into a false sense of identity. “My pain defines me,” suffering whispers. This might appear insightful, but it’s actually a deceitful distortion of reality posing as truth. Pain doesn’t define us; it educates us.
Suffering exploits our pain, luring us to interpret its manifestation through the self-referential perspective of “me,” “mine,” and “I,” thereby transforming it from a present-moment sensation into a thought-dominated event. Rooted in the past, suffering prioritizes itself over finding solutions. To liberate ourselves from suffering, we need to discern the difference between actual pain and the narratives we create around our pain. We need to wrestle the ring from Gollum’s grasp. We need to wrestle ourselves free from our addictive stories.
Pain is a catalyst for change.
Understand yourself to liberate yourself. Recognize that you’re clinging on to something to let it go. Understand that you’re stuck to move forward. Learn to forgive to love. Take a leap of faith and discover your miraculous potential. Choose. A joyous person has a joyous body, even when that body is in pain.
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