Buddhism teaches us that pain is part of life but that suffering is optional. In other words, we all experience physical and emotional pain at some time but our reaction to that pain is what determines how much we suffer or if we suffer at all. It’s all about resistance vs. acceptance.
I had a Yoga teacher who would tell me, when I felt tension or soreness in a joint or muscle, to “breathe into it.” Rather than resist the tension and pain thereby making it worse, she was instructing me to turn my attention toward it and relax into it as I breathed deeply.
Do the same thing with fear, emotional pain, and challenge. Don’t fight it. Move with it. Breathe into it. Accept it as part of the process of growing, healing, moving forward and working through things in your life.
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