Sufferin' Seaweed

Suffer:  To feel pain; to undergo hardship; to become worse.

There's a quote in our literature that I've always liked: "Until now, our lives have been largely devoted to running from pain and problems.  We fled from them as from a plague.  We never wanted to deal with the fact of suffering.  Character building through suffering might be all right for saints, but it certainly didn't appeal to us."  Hoo boy, that's some quote.  

If I have anxiety the best approach is to acknowledge it instead of trying to make it go away.  Sit there and look at it.  It's present - might as well let it ramble.  One suggestion that I find helpful when I'm stuck on an airplane with a squalling infant is to listen to the howling closely instead of trying to ignore it - the human brain is wired to notice changes in its environment and to slip into idle when things stay the same.  If you try to ignore the crying then every time there's a change in volume, pitch, tone, timber, intensity, or quality your brain is going to send a signal to perk up and pay attention because something has changed.  Close your eyes and hold onto the edge of your chair for a few minutes - rather quickly you'll notice that the touch sensation will begin to ebb and eventually fade.  Your brain says: "Nothing new to report - I'm going to focus on something else."  But as soon as you move your hand the feeling springs back to life.

So much of the time I judge the feelings that I have.  I categorize them as Good or Bad and if they're in the later category I try to change them.  If I can just look at the feeling and not rate its quality in my life then I'm OK with it.

Here's another quote: "The chief activator of our defects has been self-centered fear - primarily fear that we would lose something we already possessed or would fail to get something we demanded.  Living upon a basis of unsatisfied demands, we were in a state of continual disturbance and frustration."

That's a hell of a quote, too.