We all suffer. This is the swelling pain the bellows up in us when we encounter a hardship in life. Our own suffering is unique to ourselves and one person’s suffering can be experienced totally different in another person.

When we suffer, we have the opportunity to become more free. The suffering can be used as a way to identify obstacles or the cause of our suffering. When we are able to identify these points, we can work to change them.

Our spirits are made of ecstasy and love. How can we still embody that when we are suffering? What do you need to do to experience that? By identifying the cause of our own suffering, we can move closer to our own freedom. That freedom comes when learn how we can hold our own suffering while still feeling the ecstatic love of being ourself.

What is the authentic self? We each are a spiritual beings inside of a human body. That’s a heavy statement! The authentic self is the spirit in us acting true to itself. But most of the time, we do not act true to our spirit. We often let go of this power to our ego. Don’t get the wrong idea about the ego, it’s not inherently evil. It’s a tool.

The ego is a product of a brain that has evolved over thousands of centuries. The brain is a fantastic tool for building skyscrapers and repairing broken bones. But, it is only a tool. The predicament we fall into is identifying fully as our brain when there is so much more to us than that.

The brain is a tool instead of the full experience and ego is a byproduct of our self identifying with our brain. When we act to feed our ego, we fall into the trap. Because we are identifying with the brain, we become dependent on the outcome of situations to reinforce our own ego. The ego becomes under threat because it believes it is the end all be all of ourself. If the ego goes, “I” go.

The ego’s feeling of vulnerability masks our authentic self. It orders us to act a certain way and to comply with social conditioning. The reason why is because it is dependent on the outcomes in order to maintain itself. This is how our anxieties around socialization exist. We are dependent on everyone liking us (or the inverse: dependent on not being judged.) Therefore we act in an inauthentic way. A way that is clumsy, challenging, and cumbersome. The cure to this isn’t to learn a secret formula for speaking to people, but instead to learn how to exist as the authentic self, the spirit. This is important. If we do not live authentically, then we are not truly living in a way that is in alignment with ourselves.

This is how all the drama starts! We let the ego take charge and it makes the decisions in accordance to its conditioning – not our authentic self. The ego is only doing its job, though. But what this turns into is a life full of decisions that are not aligned with our true desires and wants. We are taken in a direction that is completely opposite to our inherent path: the path of the heart.

But, once we realize that we are so much more than the egotistical mind, we can really start to connect with ourselves. As we sit quietly and listen deeply, we can hear the whisper of our spirit. Then we can stoke the embers and give fire to our existence. We can feel the burning passion to live and to live authentically, truly, to our self – the spirit. We can exist, comfortably within our bodies. We can follow the heart path and live impeccably in accordance to the life that is available to us.

We are burdened by the outcome. When we rely on specific results we are basing our own freedom and joy on a specific scenario. “I must get this big raise” or “I must get everyone to like me” because “that is the only way I will be happy!”

We bet all of our money on an exterior thing. We’re all in on one scenario. We depend on the money or the lover or the politician to feel whole. That is us using an exterior, out of our control, scenario to fulfill our own identify of self.

What does that thing we depend on bring us that is inaccessible in this given moment? Think critically about what it is that this dream scenario brings you.

Does a big promotion give you more wealth and does that wealth give you a new car? What is the point of the new car? Status? What does status give you? Self importance? What does self importance give you? Respect for yourself? What does respect for yourself give you? Love?

In that situation, our own love is entirely depended on a promotion. My god, that is a lot of effort! When we are unable to love what we perceive to be unlovable we go to great lengths to find alternatives to this. That’s how we build our dependencies for happiness.

How do you love yourself? By bringing your awareness back to this given moment. While the awareness is there, focus on the thing that you can love in this moment. From there, slowly expand it outward to meet the loving joy for the act of loving something.

To be free isn’t to remove the weight but to be with the weight. When a person jumps into water, the water does not reject the person. The water envelopes them. It fits the person into itself.

The burden in our lives does not stop us from being free. Our relationship to the burden stops us from being free. Burden, like all else, is fuel for becoming more free.

The weight of burden is a reminder to bring our attention back to the moment. The moment is where true freedom exists. That is: the connection to true authentic selves, the infinite well of joy.

To return to the moment by not getting trapped in the crushing weight of burden – ooh, wow! What freedom one has!

How do you love someone who has created an injustice? Loving everyone includes evil after all.

When we identify ourselves, everything in the world can be identified as not ourselves. We know where we exist and where we end. Identification of ourselves creates separation and division from everything that we identify as not ourselves. When there is separation and division, there is conflict.

Identification creates conflict which is the drama of our lives. We become lost in the game of living. We begin to weave narratives around the drama and tell stories. It’s the melodrama of our lives. Us succumbing to our own drama is the same as Earth rotating on its axis. Both are the universe acting, performing, and doing it’s thing.

That last sentence is critical. Everything we do is the universe in motion. Our identification is part of the grand game. Good and evil exist in our identification. Good and evil are two sides of the same coin. Our love exists beyond the coin. To love evil is to exist beyond the coin. Stopping the identification of ourselves allows us to see through the separation of all things. It lets us expand our love to all that we know. It stops our own hate because we aren’t hate. We are joy. By releasing the guard rails, we expand ourselves and start loving all there is.

Loving everything does not mean allowing injustice to spread. This is an important clarification. We must do everything we can to stop injustice and prevent suffering. Because we exist in a society, we must help each other. Building community, protecting each other from hate, feeding each other, caring for each other’s well being are foundational to a functioning society. This is our part in the grand game, the universe doing its thing.

How do you love evil, hate, and injustice? By seeing through the veil of identification. You are the universe. The universe still plays the role of stopping evil, hate, and injustice. When you see through the identification, your love expands to parts thought to be unlovable.