suffering

“Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering.”  CG Jung

Neurosis is the old word for depression and anxiety.  To suffer is to bear something unpleasant, something painful.  M. Scott Peck’s book “The Road Less Traveled,” begins with the sentence, “Life is difficult.”  These ideas illustrate a point I find to be very important:  when we do our legitimate suffering – i.e. feel our way through a difficult change, when we turn “toward” the pain of whatever life has brought us, and bear the pain, we change.  The outcome of that change is wisdom.  Wisdom is respect for the sacredness and mystery of life and what it is to be alive.  With wisdom comes compassionate knowing.  When we turn away from suffering, we cheat ourselves and those around us of badly needed wisdom.

There is tremendous suffering in the world.  The communities we live in, many are suffering the basics of hunger, to the complexities of bereavement.   We need each other to help one another bear these sufferings.  This is the essence of love.

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