The Buddha himself said that life is suffering. Practically everyone knows what suffering is, whether morally or physically. But what does suffering consist of?
Can any unpleasant feeling be called suffering? What turns that painful feeling into suffering? It is convenient to answer these questions with the help of the example of hunger.
Hunger is familiar to everyone and serves as a normal physiological reaction of the body to the absence of food. It even evokes certain pleasant feelings when a person knows that he will soon satisfy his need for delicious and flavorful food.
Under normal circumstances hunger does not cause stress and does not adversely affect health. But imagine a situation where a person who is hungry has, for example, a stomach ulcer or diabetes. For people with these disorders, eating on time is as important as breathing. If this doesn’t happen, tragedy can happen.
And, not being able to eat at a certain time, such a person will start to get scared. It’s a perfectly normal 
reaction, because in the face of mortal danger, anxiety is a natural, natural feeling in this situation.
As these events unfold, a person becomes overwhelmed by discomfort: physically, a feeling of hunger, and emotionally, a strong feeling of fear and panic.
Can these feelings lead to suffering? No, not necessarily. As long as the person himself does not begin to suffer.
That is, when he succumbs to despair and cries out to God claiming his own bad luck and failures. All these thoughts, usually appearing in a person’s mind in such a situation, are manifestations of self-pity.
Feelings of self-pity
Thus, the feeling of self-pity and transforms unpleasant feelings into real suffering. Usually the habit of self-pity has its origins in childhood, and it is very similar to daydreaming. For dreams compensate in a certain way for unrealized desires. Self-pity emphasizes personal problems.
It is bad when a person acquires the habit of constantly feeling sorry for himself in all situations of life. It is as if he makes up for the lack of attention to himself by excessive self-pity, treating the world negatively and with irritation. The sages of antiquity believed that suffering is a conscious choice to suffer. Yes, this choice occurs on an unconscious level, but it is still made by the individual.
Try not to allow feelings of self-pity to arise. But even if it has already appeared and taken hold of you, you can always eradicate it, if you just want to. When you get rid of pity, you will finally stop suffering and anguish.
Just do not allow this nuisance to take root in you, do not indulge in its manifestations. After all, pity destroys man from the inside, wastes his energy, does not give a normal way to think and feel.
Cut off the oxygen to pity – and you immediately find ease and calm, get rid of childhood complexes and false stereotypes, you’ll be stronger and more resilient.
Do not indulge their own pity, because it turns you into a weak and weak-willed creature. A man can be afraid – there’s nothing wrong with it, but the fear should not drive him into a corner, to panic and make rash decisions. One must begin to live your life.
Pain may not turn into suffering if you don’t pity yourself and multiply that pity, growing it to unimaginable proportions. Life A person can go on without suffering if he manages to eradicate self-pity and no longer let it into his heart.
With love and faith in you, Maria Shakti.
