Even though the Letting Go of Suffering course is over, you will still be able to access the lessons any time you want to. Before long there will also be an icon on the right sidebar of my blog that will lead to this list.
The more we become immersed in suffering, the more difficult it may be to get out of it. Sometimes it may feel as if we are being pulled down into muck. In this course, you have learned many techniques for letting go of suffering. This last lesson will be about consciously working to “Lighten Up!”
One of the ways to lighten up is to do things that will make you laugh. Decades ago, I gave one of my psychotherapy clients a toy frog and encouraged her to carry it around with her when she was suffering. She was irritated with me at the time, but soon thereafter brought clown noses to group and distributed them. She wore hers whenever she realized she was suffering and found that it helped her to lighten her mood. I imagine seeing her also helped lighten the mood of a lot of other people!
Many years ago, I learned a technique from a therapist named Mary Goulding. She instructed us to push our tongues into our cheeks and then talk nonstop about all of the things we were suffering about. When we say those statements that way, they may lead to laughter instead of suffering.
Another way to lighten up is to talk about the problems that are bringing us down in a dramatic and highly exaggerated way. This past December, I was at Amma’s ashram in Amritapuri, India when the the Western residents performed their annual Christmas play. There was a point in that play when an actor portrayed his suffering in a way that resulted in the audience bursting into laughter. To me, the scene and the song that went with it, are a perfect example of this type of lightening up. Listen to the song and see if it might be a useful tool for you to use in the future!
You may also help yourself to lighten by going for a walk, immersing yourself in nature, going to a movie, reading a book, watching a funny movie, or listening to music. In the balloons below, write your favorite ways of lightening up.
Every day this week, spend some time practicing ways to lighten your mood. At the end of the day, journal about your experience.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
As I mentioned in the beginning, this is the last lesson in the Letting Go of Suffering series. Thanks so much for participating in all or part of it. I hope you find the tools you have learned during the last seventeen weeks helpful in your life journey.
Sometime this week, I will be publishing a post that will provide links to all of the lessons, and will put a widget on the sidebar that will link to that list. I will also be publishing a poll asking some feedback questions.
To find all of the lessons in this series click here.
During this course you have been introduced to many tools which can aid you in moving out of suffering. In this chapter, you will have the opportunity to learn how to use seven more tools.
Suffer out loud, i.e. whine, bitch, moan, pout, etc. Say anything and everything that comes to your mind.
Exaggerate your feelings and thoughts.
Stick with it until you feel an energy shift (may be 5-10-15-20 minutes).
Step out of the box
Identify one thing you will do to work on the situation you were suffering about.
(The Suffer Box was adapted from the Fuss Box concept, Jean Illsley Clarke and Connie Dawson, Growing Up Again: Parenting Ourselves, Parenting Our Children.)
Go for a walk, watch a movie, play tennis, talk to a friend (on any topic other than what you are suffering about), listen to music, read a book, exercise, etc.
After the suffery energy has shifted, identify one thing you are going to do to solve the problem that is related to your suffering.
Make a written list of all the things you are angry about. I am mad that_____. I am mad that_____. I am mad that _____.
Write a poison pen letter saying all of the negative things you would like to say to the person you are angry with. Be sure to destroy the letter afterwards. This is an opportunity for you to vent. No one should ever see it.
Hit a pillow with your fists or a tennis racket
Stomp your feet.
Twist a towel and let your anger flow into the towel.
If you are feeling distant from someone, or you are aware you have unfinished business with them, then do a clearing. I find the model below to be very helpful.
I feel _________________ (mad, sad or scared)
Because when you _________________________
I think it means ___________________________
What I need from me is ______________________
What I need from you is ______________________
Example 1:
I feel scared
Because when you didn’t acknowledge me when I walked into room
I think it means you are mad at me
What I need from me is to remind myself that I’m okay even if you are upset with me.
What I need from you is to know if you are mad at me, i.e. check out your fantasy
Example 2:
I feel mad
Because when you do things I haven’t asked you to do
I think it means you believe I’m incompetent.
What I need from me is to remind myself that I am competent regardless of what you think.
What I need from you is to know whether you think I am incompetent, i.e. check out your fantasy.
Most often our fantasies are wrong, but if you happen to be right, read what you wrote in the fourth line and focus on that. There may be problems that the two of you need to solve but wait until you are both feeling grounded and ready to work on them.
#7
Sharing Resentments and Appreciations
Ask a friend to work with you as learn how to share and hear resentments and appreciations.
Share two resentments with your friend and listen to two of hers/his. Focus on events that have occurred recently. The person giving the resentment uses the format “I resent that you ______.” The listener responds “Thank you” or “I hear you.” When you are hearing resentments, remember that you are hearing the other person’s experience. It does not mean that you are “bad” or have done something wrong or that you have to agree with their perception. Do not defend or argue, simply listen.
Share two appreciations with your friend and listen to two of hers/his. Focus on events that have occurred recently. The speaker uses the format “I appreciate that you_____.” The listener responds “Thank you” or “I hear you.”
Examples
I resent that you left the cap off of the toothpaste tube.
I resent that you didn’t put your dishes in the dishwasher.
I appreciate that you gave me a hug when I came home.
I appreciate that you called me today.
[Note: Thanks to Elaine Childs-Gowell, Jean Illsley Clarke, Al Chase, and the other therapists who created and/or revised the 1) clearing and 2) resentment and appreciation models.]
Every day this week, use one or two of these tools and then journal about your experience.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
See you next Monday for the seventeenth and last lesson.
To find the lessons in this series that have already been published, click here.
Suffering patterns often become rigid. Simply thinking about a topic that has brought you pain in the past, might trigger you into suffery behavior. One technique that may be helpful in breaking those patterns is to change your suffering profile.
In Week 2 of this series, each participant identified their personal suffering profile. They did that by examining the following areas:
The time of day I usually suffer (e.g. morning, afternoon, evening).
Where I usually suffer (e.g. home, work, bedroom, basement).
The people with whom I usually suffer (e.g. husband, friend, employer).
The day of the week I usually suffer (e.g. Saturday, Monday).
The messages I usually give myself when I suffer (e.g. Nobody loves me, I can’t do anything right).
Where in my body I usually feel my suffering (e.g. head, stomach, chest).
Time of year I usually suffer (e.g. holidays, birthday).
What I usually suffer about (e.g. my children, my family, work).
If you completed that original assignment, go back and look at your answers. If you did not write down you responses, or if this is the first time you have learned about a suffering profile, then create it now. You can either use the list above, or go back to the original assignment and use the diagram.
Once you have identified, or reviewed, your suffering profile, you are ready to start this week’s assignment.
Each day this week, whenever you are tempted to suffer, go ahead and suffer! But this time, be sure you are suffering in different ways than those you identified in your profile. For example, if your profile is to suffer about work, at home, during the evening, with your husband, an alternative could be to choose to suffer about your yard, with a supportive friend, during the day, on a walk.
If nothing is bothering you, then intentionally find something to suffer about, so that you have multiple experiences of changing your profile.
Take a few minutes each day to journal about your experience.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
See you next Monday for the sixteenth lesson.
To find the lessons in this series that have already been published, click here.
Dr. Ed Beckham, Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Oklahoma Health Science Center in Oklahoma City, once developed a series of tips to aid you in ruining your day.
Plan twice as much as you can get accomplished.
Don’t be flexible
-demand others do everything your way
-know it will be a catastrophe if you don’t get your way
-view everyone who disagrees with you as an obstacle
Worry about anything that can be worried about
-think a lot about anything that is going wrong even if you can’t do anything about it
Take things personally
-think about how others aren’t treating you fairly
-ruminate about how others don’t have the right to do what they do to you
-brood about how you don’t deserve what is happening to you
Don’t be humorous about anything
-take everything very seriously
-consider everything to be a life and death situation
(Source: Stimulate Your Stress, US Air Magazine, p. 10, July 1991.
Paradoxically, these same tips can be used to help you stop your suffering.
Your assignment this week is to make everything BIGGER:
For 15 to 60 minutes a day
-plan twice as much as you can get accomplished
-don’t be flexible
-worry about anything that can be worried about
-take things personally
-don’t be humorous about anything
Pick a specific time period to complete the assignment, i.e. do not do “10 minutes here and 10 minutes there.” If possible, do the assignment the same time each day.
Do NOT set yourself up
-don’t do this assignment at work
-do not do this assignment around people who are not supportive of you
-let the people who will be around you when you are doing the assignment know what you are doing
If you are tempted to suffer at any other time during the day, tell yourself that it is important for you to wait until the assigned time.
Each day, after you complete your assignment, spend a few minutes journaling about your experience and about your day in general.
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
See you next Monday for the fifteenth lesson.
To find the lessons in this series that have already been published, click here.
Another behavior that often leads to suffering is failure. Failure is “to disappoint expectations or trust; to fall short; to be or become absent or inadequate; to be unsuccessful.” (Webster’s Ninth New College Dictionary, Springfield: Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1988, p. 445)
The reality is that any time we choose to act, we take the risk of failure. In order to succeed, we must be willing to risk failing. There is much that can be gained from acting, even if the result is failure. As with mistakes, it is important to see that failure is a necessary part of living and that something can be learned from every failure. Continue reading “Letting Go of Suffering- Week Ten: Failure”→
Making a mistake is one of those life situations that often leads to suffering. A mistake is “a wrong action or statement proceeding from faulty judgment, inadequate knowledge or inattention.” (Merriam-Webster, Inc. 1988 p. 760.)
An important step in letting go of the suffering is to adopt the mind-set that mistakes are an important and necessary part of living, and that something can be learned from every mistake. In time, you may even come to see making a mistake as a positive event rather than a negative one.
This week, record every mistake you make. Write down the tiny mistakes as well as the big ones. Next to the mistake, write what you learned from making it and what you will do differently in the future. Add more paper if you need to.
You are lovable even when you make mistakes.
Making mistakes is important for your growth.
You can learn from every mistake.
See you next Monday for the tenth lesson.
To find the lessons in this series that have already been published click here.
Most likely, the reason you suffer as an adult is because suffering was an acceptable method of expressing your feelings, or more accurately, a method of “stuffing” your real feelings, in your family of origin. This week you will explore some of the childhood origins of your suffery behavior. Again, Levin’s Think Structure (Cycles of Power) will be used as the tool to help you organize your thinking.
(The Think Structure process is taught in the previous lesson.)
Example 1
Situation: As an adult, I have trouble saying “NO”. I will think about what happened when I said “NO” as a two-year-old and nine-year-old child.
Example 2
Situation: As an adult, I have trouble asking for what I want. I will think about what happened when I asked for what I wanted as an infant and a 14 year-old child.
When you explore how your adult behaviors relate to your childhood, it would be helpful for you to look at one behavior over a variety of ages. In each of the examples below I ask you to look at an issue for two different ages. Fill in the blanks to come up with your own think structures.
Practice Exercise 1
Practice Exercise 2
During the rest of the week, complete Think Structures for some of the adult behaviors you worked on in Practice Exercise 3 in the previous lesson. Explore two childhood ages for each Think Structure. (Ages that tend to be particularly good to reflect on are infant, 2, 5, 9, 14 and 17.)
You may need to change the way you described the adult behavior in Practice Exercise 3 in the previous lesson, so that it becomes a childhood behavior. For example, if your adult behavior was “leave work early”, the child behavior might be “do what I want to do.”
See you next Monday for the sixth lesson.
To find the lessons in this series that have already been published click here.
The task for this week and the next will be to explore WHY you suffer, e.g. why you are suffering now as an adult and why you learned to suffer as a child. The primary tool you will use is Pam Levin’s “Think Structure” (Cycles of Power). This structure will help you 1) organize your thinking and 2) determine what motivates or drives the behaviors that lead you to suffering.
Example 1
Situation: I agreed to help a friend move to a new apartment and even though I didn’t want to do it. I feel mad that I am not spending my day doing what I want to do. This would not have happened if I had said “No” in the first place, but I was afraid to do that.
Example 2
Situation: I want to go to the movie but I am afraid that if I ask my friend to go, she will say “NO” to me, so I stay home alone.
Your turn! Think of recent times when you had trouble 1) saying “NO” and 2) asking for what you want. Fill in the practice exercises below. If you can’t think of recent incidents, use experiences from the past.
Practice Exercise 1
Practice Exercise 2
During the rest of the week, be aware of times you are suffering. Use the Think Structure to help you sort out what is going on for you. If you have no incidents of suffering during the week, complete the structures from incidents in the past. If you have trouble identifying when you are suffering, use some of the behaviors you identified in Exercise 1 of Lesson 2. Complete at least three more Think Structures this week.
Practice Exercise 3
Feel free to share or ask for feedback on Think Structures that you come up with!
See you next Monday for the fifth lesson.
To find the lessons in this series that have already been published click here.
Walt Disney once said, “If you can dream it, you can do it.” Many years ago, Pam Levin taught me that the first step in manifesting your vision is to have one.
The exercises for this week are devoted to imagining what your life would be like if you didn’t ruminate about the past, worry about the future or do the unhealthy behaviors that you know make you miserable.
Exercise 1
Identifying Your Vision
Take a few deep breaths. Focus on “breathing in relaxation” and “breathing out tension.” Let your body settle into the chair you are sitting on, or the bed or floor on which you are lying. As you begin to relax, let yourself imagine what your life would be if you were no longer immersed in suffering.
Let the images come and your new world develop. When you are ready, bring yourself back into the present and then answer the questions in this exercise. If you need to, close your eyes and go back into your new world to get the answer to a question.
Exercise 2
To make your vision become a part of your life, spend 10-30 minutes a day for the next five days putting yourself into a meditative state (through breathing slowly and allowing yourself to relax) and then experiencing your new world. Feel what it feels like to live there. Experience whatever you experience. Let your new life develop in your mind’s eye. Jot down some notes in the spaces below.
As you identify other components you would like to have in your new world, add them to your vision. Periodically, throughout your life, refer to the two exercises in this lesson to see where you are in creating that vision. Each time, see if there are areas you want to add, or parts you want to let go of. Decide which part of your vision you want to work on next. Don’t feed suffering by expecting your life to change all at once. You will create you vision one day, or even one step, at a time.
See you next Monday for the fourth lesson.
To find the lessons in this series that have already been published click here.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.” “Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”-William Shakespeare
Living, Learning and Letting Go 