Tag Archives: suffering

What Would My Higher Power Have Me Do?

Posted on by under guidance, Higher power, Uncategorized

girl in the sunrise

When I first decided to turn my life over to a higher power, I thought, heck, it’s still just me making decisions. I “turn to my higher power,” and then I make the decision. What’s new about that? Yet I decided to go through the motions to see what might happen.

Much of my spiritual life starts with going through the motions. Then in time, something else takes over.

Going through the motions meant I would ask my “higher power” for direction before making a decision of any consequence beyond what to watch on TV during breakfast. Instead, I would pause and ask for direction.

Over the next few weeks, something shifted.

One day I asked for guidance on a problem that had been bothering me for days. Instantly the right solution popped into my brain. That couldn’t have been my higher power. It was too quick. My higher power can’t possible move that fast.

Then I asked about a problem I had with a friendship. I faced a big decision. Should I continue with this long-term friend? No answer came. In the past, I would have shrugged and gone on with the dysfunction. Instead I kept asking. The answer came, but it took weeks: walk free from the friendship.

It wasn’t easy. The extrication was awkward and not quite spiritual. But it was the right decision.

I understand what people mean when they say “a problem has them hopelessly defeated.” I lived in that world for decades. It’s a world of suffering.

That sad condition lifted when I began turning to my higher power for answers.

Photo credit: Yahoo

 

 

 

 

Advertisement

Who Is the One Who Suffers?

Posted on by under presence, spiritual awakening, Spirituality, True self

A friend of mine was suffering – old wounds from childhood violence were opening. The pain she said was unbearable.

I told her I understand. I do understand. She was absorbed in the details, and in those details, what she experienced has never happened to anyone before. Nothing has happened to anyone before.

I understand that. I stayed in her presence and she stayed in her pain, not understanding how there can be so much pain.

I wanted to tell her, “You are not who you think you are.”

I wanted to say, “You are something else.”

I wanted to say, “You are the one who sees the one who suffers.”

I wanted to say, “You are not the one who suffers.”

I decided to not want.

I stayed in her presence, and her pain began to subside. The pain will return, perhaps less strong if she is willing to stay in the pain and feel it again. But who knows, maybe stronger.

I wanted to tell her, “The pain is not yours. It’s just pain.”

I decided to not want.

I am not the one who wants. I am not the one who decides.

The pain is hers, and the pain is mine, and the pain is alive in the one who suffers.

She is not the one who suffers, and I am not the one who wants or decides.

The pain is an instant, the pain is an endless road, the pain is a memory of a person who once lived but lives no longer. The pain is the entire world, and the world is nothing.