Suffering and Will

Your future is bound to contain difficult and painful events, and there is nothing you can do to protect yourself from this kind of suffering. You can, however, have some influence on how much you suffer by overriding primitive emotional reactions that tend to make things worse. Some people seek relief from their suffering through the use of intoxicants, food, sex, computer, money, etc.

The three-step path described below has the ambitious goal of enabling the user to respond to crises or protracted stressors in ways that conserve the resources required to perform well. This capability is especially useful during hard times.

If you are not currently in the midst of a crisis you have the advantage of access to the cognitive resources and the time to develop the critical skills that will enable you to remain cool during future crises. Albeit, like many readers of this guide, you may already be in a crisis and have the heroic task of having to develop subtle skills in a noisy, exhausting environment. The fact that it is confusing and difficult does not excuse you of the responsibility to respond in accord with your interests and principles.

1. The first step is developing the ability to detach from outcomes You control your thoughts, behaviors, and opinions. You do not control much else, including the outcome of the lottery, what other people think of you, or things that happen in the objective world. If you let your happiness or unhappiness depend upon such things, your emotions and motivations will be influenced by the local conditions that luck throws your way. While you do not control how things ultimately play out, you are responsible for performing well. Ironically, attachment to outcomes makes a good outcome less likely to occur, because it distracts attention from good performance and increases emotionality. People who fall into this trap are vulnerable to depression, anxiety and wide range of unhealthy and addictive behavior patterns that they use to cope with their misery.  For more on this topic please visit: Step 1: Attachment.
2. After appreciating the difference between performance and outcome, the next step is distinguishing between what you think and feel and what is objectively true.  Your experiences, including beliefs, feelings, and motivations, are not accurate reflections of objective reality; rather, they are temporary mental events that are biased by local conditions. The name of this realization is: Meta-Cognitive Awareness, and it emerges from the discipline of relating to thoughts and feelings as "mental events" rather than as real aspects of the self or as accurate reflections of objective reality. By stepping outside of your present experience you can observe it dispassionately and, for a while, escape the Soul Illusion. For more on this topic please visit: Step 2: Meta-Cognitive Awareness.
3. The final step of this path is developing the procedural skills to act in accord with your interests and principles, even in the face of local stressors and temptations.  Intentional trance formation is a direct method to intentionally change your motivational state. For more on this topic please visit: Step 3: Intentional Trance Formation.

This three-step path provides an escape from the vicious cycle in which suffering evokes a pathogenic reaction, and this reaction, in turn, magnifies the suffering. Individuals who suffer from mood disorders and disorders of dependence often seek treatment to escape their problem. Medication, as well as other Disease Model treatment strategies, often produce short-term improvement, but the symptoms tend to return. The relapsing nature of these symptoms is the crux of the problem, and good long-term outcome requires a permanent solution to this problem.

An alternative to depending upon an external agent such as medication, or a treatment program is a self-determination. The Three Step Path described above is one approach to escape from dependence on external agency. The individual who follows this path is the active agent of change. Naturally, this self-directed approach is not for everyone and is not a substitute for medication for those who need it. However, for those who have the cognitive abilities to follow this abstract material and have a practical, problem solving attitude, the tools and experiential invitations on the pages ahead can help you through this important passage of lifespan development.

---

There is a lot of suffering in life, but the only suffering that can be avoided is the suffering that results from trying to avoid suffering.