Relief From Suffering

​Last week I received a call from Gail Warner, a therapist friend and owner of Pine Manor Retreat Center, in Lake Elsinore, California, to tell me that she’d used the title of my new book (Where Do You Hang Your Hammock?) as a sand tray prompt during a recent group session. 

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Sand tray therapy is a combination of play therapy and art therapy. The therapist provides the client with a tray or box filled with sand, as well as a variety of miniature toys, to create an imaginary world. The toys may include anything from people and their assorted professions, to animals and buildings, to religious and sacred objects, modes of transportation, and more. Gail has two rooms in her retreat center filled with such “toys.” 

​I visited her the weekend of July 10, and the night I arrived, I created a sand tray of my own. Anyone who knows me, or who’s read my books, knows that I love creative, intuitive therapeutic practices. I was all over that sand tray exercise, and am still writing about it in my journal. Lots to unpack.
 
In my heart of hearts, I’m a healer.
 
Lately, I’ve been struck by how much suffering we’ve seen since the start of the pandemic, both collectively and privately. Circumstances have been rough—undoubtedly harder for some than for others. But I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all been challenged. How do we cope with hardships, and where do our struggles really come from? Let’s take a look at a few culprits:

1. Circumstances. It’s easy to assume that our suffering comes from our circumstances. This is a common outside-in assumption, meaning that many of us believe that our outside world is responsible for creating our experience, good or bad. This may be true to a certain extent, but psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning, reminds us that between stimulus and response there’s a moment of choice. In other words, we get to decide how we’ll respond to any given situation or moment. This is powerful—and something I forget all the time. It’s easier to complain about hard stuff than it is to take things in stride and trust things to unfold. Fighting what is, when it’s beyond our control, exacerbates suffering.
   
   
2. Disconnection. I don’t know about you, but I get cut off from my true self often. I unconsciously imagine that the events and people around me define me. I’m seduced by the idea of separateness. I’m me. You’re you. We’re separate. I suffer. I’m alone. But nothing could be further from the truth. We are all one. Made of the same stuff. Connected by life’s magical, invisible web. We can never be separate. We live with the illusion of separateness, and this cuts us off from our truth and from our good. It also severs us from our peace. From love. From life itself.
   
   
3. Feeling Less Than. I’ve written about this a lot. While some of us may feel “less than” more than others, all of us feel this way at one time or another. The key is to distrust the internal speaker of this voice. Let it be background noise. Don’t take it seriously. Think of it as universal doubt. It’s not personal. It’s part of the human condition. You are no better than anyone, and no one is better than you.  
   
   
4. Projected Anger and Hatred. Do you ever wonder how people can spew snarky, or downright mean, Facebook remarks? Hateful behavior emanates from people harboring hatred within. Hate begets hate. Those whose hearts overflow with love do not inflict hatred upon others. Hatred and anger are common causes of suffering. 
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5. Asking the Wrong Questions. Many of us ask why some bad thing is happening. I do this all the time with my health. I experience an unpleasant symptom and the first thing I hear inside my head is, Why is this happening? I unconsciously think that if I can answer the “why,” I’ll be able to make myself better. Solve my problem. But instead I descend the rabbit hole of worry. “Why” questions do that because there are so many things we don’t and can’t know. I’m constantly reminding myself not to spin my wheels in the mud of why. It’s much more productive to cultivate comfort with not knowing. Make friends with uncertainty. Meet yourself where you are. It’s fruitful to ask “what” questions, such as, What can I learn from this? “Where” questions are also useful. I like to ask, Where is the love here? Where is the peace here? Where is my compassion for myself and for others? 

 
The word compassion means “with suffering.” So how do we sit with suffering without being consumed by it?
 
Surrender is a great place to start. Which brings me back to my recent call from Gail, who told me that while sharing her sand tray, a woman in her group coined the term “surrenderful.” 
 
When Gail shared this, I smiled because I know how great surrender feels, and I also know how hard it can be to let go. But letting go—and in many cases this means letting go of old, inner stories we tell ourselves—creates a lovely, spacious feeling. In the same way that love and trust dissolve fear, suffering can’t survive in the midst of this lovely, spacious feeling, which allows the peace that’s beyond our human comprehension to fill us with joy.