Pain is Inevitable, Suffering Optional

Life is full of ups and downs, no matter how good you get at living the principles of success.

You can be assured that everyone, everywhere will have plenty of opportunity throughout their life to experiment with different ways to deal with the inevitable and occasional pain.

Sometimes the pain is occasional, sometimes it seems pretty relentless. Sometimes it’s physical pain, sometimes it’s emotional pain, or some other kind of pain that gets our attention and causes us to start asking new questions that have never perhaps crossed our minds before.

One thing that most people don’t seem to realize, however, (and this is something my good friend Garrett Gunderson taught me), is that while pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.

Let me say that again:

Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

What does that mean? That means that it doesn’t matter what happens to you, it’s your choice what to do from there. So the pain is there. It deserves to be acknowledged, but does not deserve to rule you. You are the captain of your soul, and don’t you forget it.

How do you take charge and steer your life in spite of the pain? Though it’s possible, it’s rarely accomplished through a grand and sweeping immediate transformation. It’s accomplished in the moment – that one small, quiet moment when you choose to find the good that can be derived from the hardship.

The good always exists, and the more difficult the problem, the more glorious the potential victory. It’s accomplished one quiet moment at a time. The toughest work is internal, but conquer it there, and your external circumstances will ultimately be a reflection of that personal victory that took place in your mind.

Stop looking for the external world to change before you feel differently inside. That’s a sure formula for endless suffering.

The only thing you can truly control is your thoughts. Your thoughts determine your feelings, and your feelings emit vibrations that resonate with external factors. God’s Universe responds to those emissions, and your awareness becomes heightened to the ideas, resources, and people who will support you in those feelings, whether they’re progressive, or regressive… you’ll be supported either way.

Wallow, and you’ll be amply supplied with ideas, resources, and people perfectly suited to enable to you keep wallowing (or to even supply you with more reasons TO wallow!)

Pull yourself up by your bootstraps, find gratitude for SOMEthing to change your vibrational emission, and you will be supplied with the ideas, resources, and people perfectly suited for helping you rise above the problem.

Remember, pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. Suffering is wallowing. Wallowing prolongs the suffering.

When we allow ourselves to wallow too long, inspired ideas are smothered away and cannot be discerned.

I’m not going to tell you that you can’t ever wallow at all – for heaven’s sake, I still have my turn once in a while and I’d be ticked at anyone who denied me the right to go there now and then. But I also know that there comes that point when it serves no more good purpose, and that’s the time to move through it and look for the ladder out of the pit.

The ladder’s always there, but until we’re ready to find it, and until we have determined plans to use it when it appears, it remains unavailable.

Are you ready to climb out?

Are you looking for something you can do that will be more portable, more profitable, and more reliable than what you’re doing now?

Let me help you – one simple step at a time through my 12-week success system. Find out more at ProspertheFamily.com.

Leslie Householder
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