Pain INEVITABLE, SUFFERING OPTIONAL?

Welcome back to the Lauren yoga video blog. You may have heard the expression “pain is inevitable suffering is optional.” Sometimes I feel like that discounts some of the suffering that we experience as human beings, like we're just supposed to be able to get over it and choose not to suffer.

What I want to share today is this idea of the first arrow and the second arrow. The first arrow is the thing that happens: the injury the illness, the loss, the annoyance, the thing that that is out of our control that is very challenging. And then the second arrow is all of the trips that we lay on ourselves as a result of that you could say, and the second arrow is what we can start to work with through our meditation practice and our mindfulness practice and yoga.

The other day, I hurt my back pretty badly working out and I was couch ridden for about three days afterward. That was the first arrow. The second arrow was me thinking I should quit my business, I had no business teaching, what am I doing teaching police mindfulness, you would not believe the list I created in my mind as a result of being emotionally and physically compromised from my injury. What that led to mentally for me was this cascade of total doubt. But I was able to see from a perspective what I was doing. I've been practicing mindfulness long enough where I thought “oh, there I go, second-arrowing all over myself.” I was able to say to myself “don't believe anything you think right now you don't feel good. You're injured, you're tired, and everything is fine.”

Of course today, several days later, everything is fine. I'm not quitting my work. I'm going to continue to progress and evolve and learn and show up. So perhaps that helps you just see that second arrow, see that suffering with a little bit of perspective. You can start to almost find humor in how you are when something's hard. So if you're tired, injured, sick, whatever it is, don't believe everything you think. This too shall pass.