I woke from a dream where I’d just been wailing at a loved one: “Why do you always make yourself suffer?”

Watching people choose to suffer has always been one of the hardest parts of being human for me. Of course, it’s easier to look at others and see how they are causing themselves to suffer than to look at myself and see my own causes of suffering.

I’ve been reading three books nearly simultaneously, and interestingly, they all discuss suffering and our (the human) addiction to it. Two of the books are evidence/research-based; one is on stress and resilience-building while the other lays the framework for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The third book, on shaman wisdom from a Native American perspective, is not evidence-based in the ways of Western science as the other two, but it certainly comes from a long-standing history of evidence that science refuses to recognize. At any rate, it’s fascinating that the three authors from three different approaches (two similar) address suffering, how we impose it on ourselves, and what damage that does to us. There really is no need for us to suffer in this life, beyond the important experiences of learning how to stop our suffering and learning what true freedom means and feels like when we put an end to our suffering.

Tangentially, I’ve been reading about the role of forgiveness in ACT as well as from the shaman perspective, and both agree that forgiving others, asking for forgiveness from others, and forgiving ourselves go a long way to reducing our suffering. These acts of forgiveness do not even have to be known to the other person(s); they merely need to be genuine and genuinely felt on our part. I personally find the self-forgiveness the most difficult of all and find my own addiction to suffering there.

Suffering causes us stress, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It helps us more than we know to step back and examine our suffering, work through it with exercises in forgiveness, and find our personal freedom. This is the area where I am most passionate (and obviously, it’s very much on my mind if I’m dreaming about it!). This is the area where using the tools I have can help others. This is my calling to serve.