Is Suffering a Choice?

Every Monday, WE Explore different realms of consciousness to facilitate your self-discovery & growth.

For those of you wrestling with the darker side of life, or helping someone through difficult times, this is a great question to ponder. 

 When I think about all the darkness and suffering in the world, I find the Taoist concept of paradoxical unity to be very helpful. To the Taoists, everything is on a yin-yang continuum; light & dark, good & bad, male and female, individual and collective. Because we can only understand something to be light because we have the dark, or good because we have the bad to compare it with, the two poles define each other - there is a paradoxical unity because they are really just two sides of the same coin. 

The goal of life to the Taoists is to get to a place where we transcend dualistic judgements and see the unity. In Vedic teachings there is a similar duality-in-unity concept in Shiva-Shakti (divine masculine-divine feminine) and Purusha-prakriti (spirit-matter). Like yin-yang they symbolise both harmony and totality. 

 The yin-yang symbol is genius for so many reasons. Firstly, the dividing line is flowing, to symbolise the fact that opposites are continually waxing and waning, merging and morphing into one another in the natural harmony and rhythm of life. This is why rigidly attempting to adhere to one or other of the poles doesn’t work; the Tao is all about finding the balance between the two. 

Secondly, the seed of the yang is contained within the yin, and the seed of yin is contained within the yang. This is how they transform each other, because in the darkness just a flash of light will be illuminating, and similarly a pinprick of darkness will be enough to dim the light.  

In the case of suffering and happiness, the seed of happiness is in the suffering; because happiness comes when you have learned something amazing from the challenge. Similarly, the seed of suffering is in happiness, because we only have to think of losing our happiness to feel the suffering. Just the thought of the other is enough to invoke the transformation. 

 You can do this thought process with all continuum’s. The victim/oppressor continuum is a classic, and is why victims of abuse often become the abusers and vice versa. To break out of that pattern one has to see it as a continuum of disempowerment/empowerment. 

The seed of empowerment is there in the disempowering situation; if you can find your inner strength just when everything in life seems to be against you (when you are a ‘victim’), then you are no longer a victim and have empowered yourself. And when you are feeling empowered you only have to see yourself as disempowered for a second to slip back into victimhood. 

 When people say ‘It’s your karmic lot’ as a way to justify oppression, this just indicates that they haven’t learned their lesson in the victim/oppressor continuum yet. Their ignorance will continue to pull things into their life to help them learn that power does not come from the outside, but from the inside. 

Until they learn this lesson the oppressor will eventually become the oppressed, and the victim will end up oppressing. The pattern breaks when the victims empower themselves and the oppressors see what they are doing and stop trying to control others as a way to compensate for their lack of self-empowerment and self-worth. 

This is why Nelson Mandela was never a victim; while in prison he empowered himself through compassion for his persecutors because he knew it was they who were the ones who were truly suffering, not him. He had transcended the duality of victim/oppressor and they hadn’t, and he knew they would continue to suffer until they broke out of it. The beauty of that story is that in the end Nelson’s tormentors were so taken aback by his loving heart that they refused to torture him any longer. His prison guard Christi Brand became his life long friend.

For me personally, I had to learn this transcendence with Lyme disease that caused fybromyalgia for 8 long years. I constantly had to move out of victim and stand in my power to overcome the pain. The more victim I felt, the worse the pain was. In the end the pain was my greatest teacher - my guru if you like, because it showed me my own fortitude and resilience. The ‘injustice’ of Lyme was ultimately for my highest good because it taught me my own empowerment - one of the greatest things you can ever learn about yourself. We are all powerful beings beyond all imaginings. So yes, it’s our choice whether we suffer, whether we see ourselves as victims or mighty Oaks. Which one do you choose?

xx

Andrea Revell

About Andrea Revell

Andrea is a visionary thought leader, philosopher and author on all things mind body spirit. Previously an academic at universities in the UK and Asia, she has lived and travelled all over the world researching and teaching on sustainability and spirituality, encouraging systemic solutions to our planetary health problems. Using integrative medicine to successfully resolve an autoimmune condition she had for many years, Andrea trained in various alternative healing modalities and is now an internationally certified spiritual life coach, unlocking people’s potential with the power of meditation, breathwork and ancient Egyptian numerology. She has a PhD in environmental ethics and is a lover of philosophy, particularly Eastern philosophy, inspired by her years of living in India and Japan. Andrea has a regular yoga and meditation practice and loves to explore all things metaphysical. Having grown up in New Zealand and South Africa, she now lives in the UK with her husband and two children.

You can connect with her on World of Enlighten, Tiktok, Instagram or her Website.