The 3 Flavors of Suffering
The 3 Flavors of Suffering
As we begin living more authentically, we leave behind older types of suffering, and the flavor of our current suffering changes.
What I’ve come to observe in my journey to aligned living is that the flavor of suffering changes as we evolve. The quality of it, you could say, changes.
Which is a normal part of the process. Because it reflects the new stage we’re at, and the type of process that we’re going through at this stage.
As we begin living more authentically, we leave behind older types of suffering, and the flavor of our current suffering changes.
The 3 flavours
As you move through the three paradigms: From Survival to Success and eventually arriving at Surrender – your life and trust gets placed in the hands of Life itself.
Your trust moves from trusting yourself, to trusting Life or God primarily, and letting it guide you and move you through your joy, to what is next and right to do and be.
And with that shift of trust, comes a new type of suffering.
Now, it starts to be about Doubt, and longing, and worrying, and uncertainty, and confusion, and dissatisfaction and apathy, and boredom, and aloneness. Yet all while living in a way that’s no longer about Tolerating what you don’t like doing, and no longer about feeling any Pressure to do or be anything other than what you are.
The Tolerance of misalignment is gone. You’re living in a way that no longer feels wrong. It may feel not enough. But it doesn’t have you doing things you don’t want to do. It may feel slow and boring, and simple, but not misaligned. That’s the flavor of first paradigm suffering — sacrifice, tolerance of misalignment, and these more or less obvious forms of self abuse.
The other type of suffering, is the second paradigm suffering, that has to do with a sense of pressure, overwhelm, and even burnout. It’s a sense of pressure which is mostly internally generated. You’re driven by the need for more, better, sooner, bigger. You’re in full force of ego and desire. You’re striving. And that hurts.
You’re disciplined. You’re motivated. You’re full of ambition. Which reflects as a variety of forms of suffering, the general flavor of which is a sense of Pressure on yourself to make your life happen. Which feels overwhelming and stressful.
Then as you begin moving into the third paradigm of trust, and following your truth alone, not your mind and fears, then the suffering reflects another process going on in you at this stage of growing.
Here you’ve mostly left behind the previous forms of suffering, that had to do with sacrifice, and pressure. Which is great, actually. That’s what you wanted all along. To no longer abuse yourself, and to no longer feel that heavy weight of having to make your life happen. Each of those types of suffering were overwhelming at that point. And now you’ve transcended them, you’ve outgrown them, you’ve evolved out of them.
That’s the good news.
Which means that now, at this stage, regardless of how your life looks like right now, or appears to, you’re no longer putting up with things you don’t like. And you’re no longer terrorizing yourself with that deluded pressure to do or be anything other that what you are.
Yet. At this stage, which is mostly a transitioning phase, another form of suffering takes precedence. Which is a natural and needed form of suffering, that has to be experienced at this phase.
This is the suffering that overall has the flavor of Doubt. You gave up your own efforts and pressure to make life happen, and you begin to surrender to Life, or God to guide you and move you naturally through your joy. But you constantly doubt the viability of that. The security of that. Especially as life takes time to move forward, and the things you hope, and dream, and long for, are not really showing up, yet, or at all. Because they are not relevant for you yet, or at all.
This is a very important phase actually in the alignment of your life. Because it has to do with your liberation and your maturing. You’re being faced with all these ego based hopes and desires, and fears and worries. You’re literally being faced with your ego, almost constantly, on a daily basis. And it’s hard.
It's a new type of suffering. You’re not sacrificing, or feeling pressure. But you’re doubting. You’re doubting the shit out of life. You decided to trust life, because it feels and seems like the right way. But life seems to not deliver. For now, at least. Eventually it does. But it needs to let you suffer for a while. It needs to let all of this victimhood and doubting and worrying and desiring, and basically all of this neediness surface. So it can be burned out of your system.
This is the typical type of suffering for this transitional stage of the journey to aligned living. You can’t skip it. You’ll inevitably feel needy, eager, angry, worried, and doubting of this new way of being in the world. Until you feel those things so much that you eventually fry them out of your system.
In a way, you get tired of them. But really, you outgrow this type of immature ego-based suffering.
You outgrow your doubting and insecurity. And what remains more and more is a type of calm, and ease and natural trust.
That’s when you’re ready to receive.
That’s when you’re more and more ready to receive. And life begins to deliver new opportunities, things begin to move forward. You’re stepping out of the dessert and into the pastures of this journey.
You’re moving out of the purgatory into the beginnings of paradise when it comes to aligned living. Because there really is a paradise. And it’s inevitable. And most of the guides and mentors teaching, are already there. And you want to be there too instantly. But you have to go through your own purgatorial process. Because paradise is not the external stuff happening in your favor, that’s just an effect. The real paradise is your liberation and thus internal freedom that aligns you with this outer experience.
The outer experience of life beginning to pick up and take flight is but the effect of your purgatorial process.
And of course, that’s the great value of mentoring, which is making you aware of this journey, and supporting you, helping you along, as you go through it. As you liberate your inner world of all these ego based doubts, neediness and insecurity.
Part of what mentoring is about is helping you understand and possibly shorten this purgatorial process. By shining light on all the structures of the ego that you can’t help but get entangled in, in this journey of alignment. And catching them in the process.
So you can hold your ground in the face of doubts, and keep chosing your truth as you move through this transitional phase of your life.
Because you see, the transition is not just external, but primarily internal. You’re literally leaving behind the insecure ways of the ego, and stepping into a secure, trusting and authentic way of being.
And that’s no easy feat. But nothing is more worth the courage and patience.
Live better,
Liviu Beschieri
