suffering

Is it possible to get rid of our suffering? Can we make our pain disappear?

Is it possible to get rid of our suffering? Can we make our pain disappear?

So many people ask me what they need to do to ‘get rid of’ their suffering. How to stop feeling the pain, stop feeling sad or even how to stop thinking about the issues that are causing their suffering. As if there were techniques to learn or a magic button that would make it all disappear in an instant.

And the answer is simple: we don’t ‘get rid’ of our suffering, we can’t just make it disappear. It takes time. It takes healing. And, surprisingly, it takes our care and attention for that to happen.

Don’t suffer alone, whatever you are going through. Why reaching out for help is so important.

Don’t suffer alone, whatever you are going through. Why reaching out for help is so important.

I hear so many people apologising for their suffering, as if their troubles aren’t ‘bad enough’ or worth paying attention to. As if other people’s problems were always more serious than theirs and that they ‘shouldn’t complain’. And my answer is often the same: ‘How do you measure and compare suffering?, ‘Why are you not deserving of attention?’, ‘Why isn’t your suffering important?’.

Why Counselling can be so powerful. And why I admire the ones who reach out for help.

Why Counselling can be so powerful. And why I admire the ones who reach out for help.

It takes courage and strength to face your problems and reach out for help. It’s not an easy decision and it will likely involve talking about things that you would probably prefer to forget about. But, as most of us might have noticed, ‘forgetting’ is impossible and doesn’t really help.