Do you want to put an end to the dark thoughts racing through your mind, the pressures you feel every day, the many ways you don\u2019t feel seen or heard? What do you really want? What do you really want to end? Your thoughts bombarding you 24\/7? Your loneliness? Your despair? What do you think happens when life ends? Do you think you won\u2019t feel anything, that you won\u2019t suffer anymore? . . .<\/p>\n
Instead of acting on these impulses\u2014stop, wait, and study the details of your life: the skin on your hands, the despair in your throat, the searing currents running through your veins. Study these things as if your life depended on it. When you stay fully present with your feelings, your sensations, and the world around you, even when it seems dark and cold, joy will arise. Joy and suffering are two sides of the same coin.<\/p>\n
The way to free yourself from pain is to feel it,<\/em> not to run away, as difficult as that may be. Be a mountain and <\/em>be porous at the same time. Become interested in yourself, your thoughts, your emotions, your sensations. This might not make sense now, but it will. . . .<\/p>\n Pain and suffering make life beautiful. This might be hard to believe while you\u2019re suffering, but the lessons you can learn from hardships are jewels to cherish. If you\u2019re suffering, it means you have a heart. Suffering is evidence of your capacity to love, and only those who understand suffering can understand life and help others.<\/p>\n The world needs your suffering, your courage, and your strength. Don\u2019t try to kill your pain. Share it with another, communicate it. If the first person you talk to isn\u2019t the right one, find someone else. Somebody somewhere wants to listen to your pain, to connect with you and understand you. When you find them, when you lighten your burden and discover the jewels and joy that are alive beneath the pain, later you\u2019ll be present for others who are suffering.<\/p>\n \u2014 Cuong Lu, Wait: A Love Letter to Those in Despair<\/em> (Shambhala: 2021)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you want to put an end to the dark thoughts racing through your mind, the pressures you feel every day, the many ways you don\u2019t feel seen or heard? What do you really want? What do you really want to end? Your thoughts bombarding you 24\/7? Your loneliness? Your despair? What do you think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mindbootcamp.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}