The Jehovah’s Witnesses just got a free coaching session.

My son and his girlfriend are in town visiting for the weekend. When the doorbell rang on Sunday morning Bryton asked if I was expecting anyone. I said maybe a package. His girlfriend placed her bet on Jehovah’s Witnesses.

They called themselves Bible Class members (not Jehovah’s Witnesses) here to help me with my suffering.

“But I’m not suffering,” I said.

“But you probably know someone who is suffering… someone who has lost a loved one.”

“Well, actually, I buried my mother yesterday. And I’m not suffering.”
The two sweet gentlemen looked aghast.

At which point I dropped a life coaching bomb. “Pain is part of life. Suffering is optional.”
Boom.

I think my philosophy was lost on them because they went on to talk about Satan. 
I don’t believe in Satan.

I think our thoughts about how things should be cause our suffering. Not Satan.

When we believe it is Satan, we give up control.
When we realize that we are the cause of our own suffering, then we can get on with the business of not suffering.

If I thought Mom should still be alive, I would be suffering.

Instead, when I feel the pain of having lost my beloved mother it feels like the residue of love. It feels like clean pain… pain I choose to feel.

Because I don’t want to be someone who feels no pain when their mother dies. 

You have to feel the lows to feel the highs.

Sometimes becoming happier seems like semantics: pain vs. suffering.

But that is only because the English language hasn’t always evolved to help us emotionally evolve.

So for our purposes, 
pain is to be felt,
suffering is always optional.

I choose to not suffer whenever possible.
I see no up side.

Satan be damned. (Oh, I’m going to hell for that. If I believed in hell.)

PS – I was suffering last week when I was thinking that I have lost my biggest cheerleaders. Because I was thinking that it was bad that they weren’t alive anymore.
I was choosing to suffer.
I could have avoided suffering by not thinking that, but I chose to think that for a while because it was a revelation to me.
First I spotted a contradiction in feelings. I asked myself why I was so sad when I also felt that it was Mom’s time to go. 
It was a lightbulb moment when I realized it wasn’t losing my mother that was so painful, but the absence of people who believe in me even when evidence points to the opposite.
I chose to explore the pain and feel it all the way through so I could be done with it. And I want to thank those of you who offered me new thoughts. I feel the love.
My new thought is that there are going to be new people who think I have hung the moon, I just don’t know who they are yet.
That feels good. 
And I believe it is true.
NOW I am ready to let go of the suffering.