Do you believe in the concept of original sin? Do you believe that to suffer is inherent within the human condition? Do you believe that a Buddha, Jesus, or some other more evolved being has more power to transform your suffering than you do?
Wow, you might say, “What a way to start an article!” Just asking these questions can activate strong emotion, which means that there is an energetic charge around these concepts based on strong unconscious belief. Even asking the questions challenges our points of view!
In response, many
spiritually-minded types may assert that of course, they do not believe in such ideas, while those with a westernized religious bent may question why on earth I am presenting original sin as a concept in the first place.
Regardless of your stance on this topic, I’d like to suggest that this core belief continues to have more of a negative impact on
our capacity to create than we might like to admit. For those of us raised in western cultures, the concept of original sin is so deeply embedded into the fabric of our experience that we catch a glimpse of it every time we attempt to rationalize a personal challenge.
During such times, we may hear the whispers of this belief through inner statements such as,
“You must deserve this negative experience.” “You need to learn something from it.” Or, “You are not yet worthy of what you seek.” Taken a step deeper, many of our internal justifications of why we are suffering stem from a worn out belief that someone or something else must come and “save the day.”
I bring this up not because I believe this to be the case,
but because while we may have renounced such “primitive” concepts long ago, the ramifications of these beliefs are still playing out in our personal and collective lives. When I listen to myself or anyone who is suffering in any area of their lives, somewhere within them lies the belief that either they deserve their suffering, or that they are only suffering because someone else is not willing to change to take away the suffering.
If you don’t believe this is true, take a moment and ask yourself if you have ever blamed someone else for not meeting your needs? If we do not believe that someone or something else can or must “change” our situation to make us feel whole, then why is it that we blame others for our experience of suffering?
It seems to me that this belief must be questioned and, hopefully, challenged if we seek to evolve beyond our current life experience and begin to step into the creators that we actually are!
We have all heard that suffering is optional, but when does it become “optional”? Suffering is only optional
when we know that we have a choice, and choice is only available when we are willing to take responsibility for our personal experiences.
My guess is that suffering is proportional to the degree that we believe that 1) We are inherently broken and thus must be “fixed,” or 2) there is an external source that is responsible for freeing us from our
suffering!
We can begin to dismantle these core beliefs by:
Questioning the stories we tell ourselves when we suffer.
- Feeling the emotions that arise when we want someone else to “fix” our reality by altering something about
themselves.
- Noticing what fears, anxiety and stressors naturally come to the surface just by suggesting that no one else can create our reality for us.
We begin to enhance our own life experience by:
- Caring for our own emotional needs.
- Talking to ourselves in ways that are uplifting.
- Choosing to be with our own emotions for the awareness they bring before we ask
another to alter themselves to meet our needs.
Please understand that I am the first to believe in a “higher power,” and I am not suggesting that we do not have seen and unseen supports to help us on life’s journey! What I am suggesting is that this support is not here to create for us or to make us whole, but rather, to walk alongside us as we learn to deeply
love and support ourselves!
