How I Deal With Suffering

(3 minute read)

Here is a frame of reference that I like to use when I am suffering with LongCovid

Note: This of course is not some mind-body trick that will suddenly solve all your problems. It does however help me when trying to practice gratitude and different frames of reference when in the pits of despair.

'What if this had always been like this?'

As buddhism teaches, ‘the route of all suffering is attachment and desire’.

That is not to suggest that suffering can not come as a result of physical pain and discomfort. But a large part of suffering results from cravings of relief, and the illusion of a separate self → that so many of us feel we have ‘lost’ due to illness.

I like to create a frame of reference in which I imagine a world where I had always ‘felt’ this way.

Would I still feel a degree of pain and unpleasant experiences?

Yes, for sure, if not slightly numbed due to natural adaption.

Would I also feel the sense of loss and craving to feel different?

Likely not, I wouldn’t know any other way.

And certainly not to the degree I currently do, having experience an alternative ‘life’ before.

This doesn’t undermine the degree to which you are suffering.

And it certainly is not a mythical escape.

But using these frame of references have helped me a lot, for I do believe that in the true absence of thought, desire and sense of self → there is no suffering, just existence.