Martha Beck

I hate suffering.

It hurts me.

But...

Now I actually really value and prize suffering because I've come to understand that it's always telling me that I've lost myself.

I'm not coming to my senses.

I'm coming to some kind of consensus.

Pain can occur, you know, if you hurt your foot or something, that's just pain.

But if you then add on to it a bunch of consensual social stuff like, oh, I'm not helping out around the house anymore, I'm not a proper woman, or I should be exercising or whatever, the pain of that foot becomes suffering.

So the more we accept consensus and it goes against our natural way of being, so the culture takes away our nature, the more we suffer.

And the world feels toxic and horrible, and we don't feel like we have a sense of purpose, and our relationships don't go well, and we often get addicted to things.

And at a certain point, it gets so bad.

That suffering won't let us continue to abandon our true selves.

And that is its gift.

It's always a friend.

It's always an ally.

And if we stop and say, okay, this hurts so much.

I'm going to go in my room by myself and figure out how to let go of what hurts me.

That usually is the only thing that starts the process for people.

Because the desire to fit in is so overwhelming.

that to break free requires an equal and opposite force.