How to Suffer

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I have been reading a lot of posts on here for quite some time now and feel deeply for all of those who suffer from the negative affects of societal rejection, misunderstandings and alienation. I'd like to make sure that we all understand that there are 2 types of empathy - cognitive and affective. I lack affective empathy - the ability to "tie into" and "feel" another person's feelings. I have, however, been able to reach a high level of cognitive empathy; therefore, I can understand how people feel if I have had a similar experience. I have felt all the things I listed above. Sometimes I still do but I have found a way to reduce the suffering. It's very simple and, eventaully, effortless.

I want to offer happiness and love to everybody here. I feel that we all need a positive post. It is the cruelty and lack of understanding of others that creates some of the suffering in us. I deal with it on a daily basis, even within my own marriage. We have the choice to reflect their actions (which I used to do and only brought more suffering) or practice compassion, understanding and kindness - the very things we're requesting of the other people. When we end our own hypocrisy in this area - we seek to understand before being understood - then we reduce our suffering. We stop blaming others, we accept that we are different and embrace those differences, regardless of whether others choose to or not. We seek to understand why they're scared of understanding us. We ask them for help in understanding what they fear, what they don't understand. We seek to understand them first and that may (but not always) lead to being understood. If we wish to feel accepted, we must first understand acceptance. In order to understand acceptance, we must understand ourselves first. Think of it this way - if we want to understand grammar, we must first learn how to speak and/or read. How else can we understand the structure of language? In order to understand the structure of our suffering we must first learn to speak the language of suffering. "I suffer. You suffer. Tell me how you suffer so that I can better understand you." We can say this to ourselves, to our loved ones and our children. We can think this way and reduce our suffering by transforming the knives of negative thinking into kitchen tools that help to feed us. Knives have that dual purpose and so does suffering. Suffering and happiness are the same just as a knife can be a weapon or a tool, depending on how it's used. Use suffering to grow understanding and compassion. We are all capable of this - it's simply a choice and comes only with practice. Many have practiced anger, I hope some will now choose to practice understanding and kindness to themselves and others.

Excellent post. When we seek to understand people who are different, we are better off for it.

Thank you. We are different - all are different - "normal" is just a guiding word like "good" or "bad". If I hate pickles and another loves pickles and that person decides that I will be happy, like him, if I only eat pickles and then only offers me pickles then I will suffer. If that person understands that I don't like pickles and, instead, offers me the freedom to choose my own food, then we will both be happier. We understand that we are different and that we suffer from it but often forget the suffering of others. NT's suffer, also, from many of the same things we suffer from. They're also able to have affective empathy - which means that they can understand us from an emotional viewpoint if we allow them, trust them and invite them into our lives without blaming them for their own "wrong perceptions". Instead, we must understand that we all suffer from "wrong perceptions" of each other and move forward, toward understanding, from there. I'm hoping this helps - this perception has helped me immensely.

Very well articulated. Thank you. My frazzled brain cannot really effectively discuss, but thank you because I've been trying to live a very similar way lately.

^I totally agree. This is very well written and insightful.

beakybird - it's very simple. Allow your brain to be frazzled. Accept it. Be aware of it and understand where the "frazzle" began, what feeds it and you will soon understand how to care for it - to stop the "crying" of that child. Or, at least, to reduce it. Allow, be aware, understand. That's it. We tend to disallow (fight our impulses), ignore and misunderstand.
hummingbird - yes, I am a banana.