“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
(Luke 10:27)
Judge nothing, and you will be happy.
Forgive everything, and you will be happier.
Love everything, and you will be happiest.
Life in this world can make loving difficult. Life includes suffering. What brings you to this page is that you’re hurting and not sure what to do about it. The greatest sages in history were all aware of the suffering that is endured by anyone living in this world. And they all offered a way out! Suffering and peace are two sides of the same coin: by understanding and accepting suffering, we move closer to heightened levels of peace. By resisting suffering, we prolong it. The most powerful tool we have to patiently endure suffering is love. Love in this context has no opposite. The love that has no opposite does not judge, always forgives, and accepts everything exactly as it is without expectation of return. Love and acceptance are close relatives.
But how do I get to that point where love helps move me toward acceptance? That is what is discussed in spiritual counseling and practiced with mindfulness. Christian counseling is simply the application of Christian doctrine to spiritual teachings and mindfulness practice (also known as prayer). Very simply, in Christian counseling you are applying Christian principles to cope with suffering.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves daily, take up their cross, and follow me.”
–Luke 9:23
Notice how I don’t say “overcome suffering.” Suffering in this world is never overcome. You only learn to live with it, and by doing so you achieve higher levels of peace. That old adage
“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”
means the reason we become stronger is that we master that which we thought would kill us. The mastery is the ability to accept what is and work within its constraints. This mastery gives us greater insight into what we can tolerate when we struggle and what we can overcome. The end result is very gratifying and gives further reason to keep on living. We all have a story of overcoming great adversity. In spiritual counseling, we learn what tools and talents are accessed in order to champion great hurdles, the thoughts and motivations that direct us to never give up. Mindfulness practice is delving more deeply into the sensations of an experience, what you feel in the present moment, so that you can choose if you want to let the experience go, or hold on to it. You develop a deeper knowledge of who you are and the strength within you that gets you up each day to put your socks on.
What we all want is a rewarding life. We all want what is good, not only for ourselves but also for those we love. Yet in achieving those goals we must face suffering. If you come to spiritual counseling and discover mindfulness practice, you can learn how to use love to transmute suffering into peace.
Or you can continue to live how you’re living now and hope it gets better. The decision is yours.