When the Agony Softens

 

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It appears at times as if life is too much to bear. A seemingly endless loop of suffering. Both physical and psychological. We ask ourselves how we would feel if we were "better". We try so hard to escape that agony and trauma that so much of us self impose on our own self involved ecosystem. Yet, we somehow still move forward and carry those little burdens with us on the regular. Time moves on, or so we think, and the agony seems to soften. But only if we let it in. Fully letting in the suffering without resisting it. Just letting it run its course. It comes and it goes, yet some us keep it ALIVE by trying to push it, shove it or repress it in so many methods and escapes. 

"we love these bandaids that cover up these moments of pain, but what happens when we can just rip those bandaids right off and simply FEEL that pain?"

Isn't this agony we have in our lives such an indicator for what it means to be alive?  This pain can lead to great things or at least make us more AWARE. Yet we like to keep pain away like the plague. A plague of misery. A storm of suffering. So much of our lives are telling us to bear the pain, to keep strong, to look ahead. Yet we do not integrate that pain for our own growth and advantage. Sure you can use that pain. You can really use it as fuel. But then what happens? You become dependent on that pain for energy. You become dependent on the idea that you NEED the PAIN to define who you think you are as a person. Can you see how this could produce a vicious cycle? You can turn a very small pain into a big pain very easily. Like turning pebbles into boulders. 

Instead of making us hardened and resistance to what it, we can soften. We can really allow this pain to do its thing. We can truly feel it. Will it hurt? Sure. But the kicker is that is does not stay. It may fade. It may stick around longer than you want it, but it transforms into something else. And of course, it's a practice. But not a method. Merely having the ability to relax in the moment and let pain be is where it's at. No need to define it. No need to intellectualize it. Those things are just trying to rationalize the pain. Then we get caught in our heads. We start to deceive ourselves. Our deep search for meaning is what tends to get us lost. We can search for forever. The pain doesn't need to have meaning if you simply just let it be. 

"What we think of agony is merely a distraction from us feeling what we think it is. When we label it, we miss on experiencing the agony it all its glory. We intellectualize the suffering to our own detriment."

So when we talk of agony, that can mean many things. Physical and mental come to mind. These things are integrated. We may have painful thoughts and that affects how we feel and thus affects how our body feels. It's all interconnected. Of course if you are in pain from a broken limb or a bullet, that's a different story. Those are things that we must take care of. Yet if we are fortunate, we survive it and we learn from it. We live. When we are in a state of emergency, there is no overthinking. We know what we must do and we simply DO it. Sure we may be in intense agony, but it is merely temporary. We can relax as much as we can in those moments of extreme agony. Even if we are only moderately uncomfortable, we can learn to just sit with it. Or walk with it. Or let it run in the background while we are grocery shopping or doing the dishes. 

So we can soften with each moment of discomfort. Agony is merely a symbol. Many of us may have different ideas and images of what we think agony is. Isn't that remarkable? Not one of us have the exact same idea of what we feel agony or see agony as. We can only loosely agree on what it could be. We don't see agony as happiness now do we? Now, the word isn't important here. It is the mere idea. Much like the idea we have that we think we need to escape from this agony. It may there for a reason, and that reason will unravel if we let it. Should the meaning matter that much? Suffering as we know is merely a part of life, it's we choose to react to it or ACT with it that is key. And it's not a destination. Trying to find a destination "away from agony" is an escape. You can keep escaping, but for how long? How long can you tolerate escaping what is? How long can you escape from just accepting what will inevitably and eventually happen? 

A majority of cultural programming tells us that we should refrain from being soft. We don't want to appear weak now do we? Well, being soft is not being weak. To equate those two is an error. Your job isn't to try to convince others that is those are not mutually exclusive, but to accept it. You can accept the unawareness of others. Like the word agony, the word soft can tell the same things. It doesn't matter. In this context, the softness is the mere acceptance of agony. The ability to look at it without judgment and repression. That's the softness that could be seen as the opposite of weakness. The goal is not to be soft either. There isn't a destination of this softness that is mentioned. It's merely an amorphous idea. Like agony, we all can only have a murky and hazy idea of what softness can be as a concept. This is how it is. One cannot force this idea of an enlightened softness. When you chase, you lose yourself. You escape the present moment. You simply reject acceptance.

Alas when the agony softens,

We relax, we live fully.

It may be uncomfortable and that's ok. 

Will the agony come back? Most likely.

Will we let it be or will we keep resisting?

Are we simply being reactive?

Are we taking an action to escape or acting with the agony that we experience? 

Will we let this agony relax us with the alignment of what is happening?

Can we simply be OK with the suffering that is all a part of this life that we experience?

Look over there, a bird sings and a dog barks. Yet we missed it. We were caught up in our own agony. The agony that we think defines us. The illusory idea that we need this agony to be who we think we are. Can you really see that illusion? Can you really see how that perpetuates a vicious cycle of agony? This happens when we identify with it. We are not the suffering we experience. We are not the reaction to suffering either. The past is a dead image. We are who we are in this moment if we truly accept it. Both of what we see as "good " and "bad" and everything in between. Those labels are merely symbols. Our thoughts on the matter on not us, they are images of the mind. These thoughts don't matter. It simply it what it is, whether we think about it or not. 

DG