The Asceticism of Happiness

In this podcast lecture, we explore the human tendency to avoid pain and how self-growth more embraces all aspects of life.

Transcript

Welcome to the happiness podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert puff.

I don't know if you'll agree with this or not.

But I think as human beings in the modern age,

We have a tendency to really want to feel good and feel good all the time.

We go to school,

We get our first job,

We start making money,

And we want things to go well.

We kind of expect things to go well.

And if they don't,

We're not very happy.

And when it comes to physiological sensations,

I think we can go quite extreme.

Let's use an example.

Let's think about sleeping.

I don't know about you,

But I've known a lot of people when they miss that good night of sleep,

They're pretty upset.

They're pretty distraught.

They create a lot of stories about their day going to be going really poorly.

And if they don't sleep for two nights in a row,

Oh my goodness,

It can be a horrible nightmare.

It can be a horrifying experience.

Now mind you,

I'm not discounting their discomfort,

But the stories they create about their discomfort can be pretty intense.

Let me use another example.

I think it was about six months ago,

I had just come home from yoga class,

And I was pulling on my pants,

And all of a sudden my back went out,

And I could barely move.

I think it took about a good four months for my back to get back to shape.

And I don't think I'm that uncommon that sometimes most of us experience times where our backs go out.

But what happens here with some people,

Not all,

But some people,

Quite a story is going to be created about that back pain,

And they're not going to like it,

And they're going to do things to create suffering because of that back pain.

Not internal suffering from the back pain,

But mental suffering about being in pain.

I mean,

In life,

We're going to have times where we experience physiological pain,

And it hurts.

But the big difference today is that we want to explore is how do we deal with that suffering,

That pain,

And is it necessarily something that we have to suffer from?

This is something we've all probably seen at some point in our lives.

We've been around young kids,

Very young kids,

And we'll see them do something that could cause them pain.

But what they do is they very quickly look around and see if their parents are upset.

And if their parents are upset,

Then they get upset.

If they hear things like,

Oh,

Poor baby,

Are you okay?

They'll start crying.

But if their parents stay kind of neutral,

Maybe don't even make a fuss about it,

They may just go on and keep playing.

They especially do that when their friends are around.

We may laugh about that,

But I'm not sure if we're all that different.

And with time,

We also begin to really hear the stories,

Not from our parents,

But from our own head about this suffering is bad,

And we need to end it immediately.

But in today's podcast,

I want us to see that as a choice,

Because if we choose to suffer,

We're going to.

But perhaps,

Just perhaps,

We can see it differently.

And if we see it differently,

The suffering abates.

And not only that,

But by seeing it in a way that we're creating a story about the suffering,

And that pain shouldn't be happening,

Then what happens is we actually increase the suffering we're going through right now.

We make the situation worse.

Let me go back to my two examples.

Let's start with sleeping.

Again,

As I said,

I think a lot of people get pretty distraught when they look at the clock at 1am and realizing they're wide awake and they're not sleeping.

They start thinking about,

Oh my goodness,

I'm going to be so exhausted today.

It's going to be such a long day.

I need to sleep.

And of course,

That pressure to sleep adds to their inability to not be able to sleep.

If they had relaxed,

They may not sleep.

But at least the next day they will have rested.

And if they don't create a story throughout that day,

They'll probably have a pretty good day.

And the next night,

They'll probably sleep better.

I think I've talked about this in earlier podcasts.

But if I haven't,

Something happened to me about 10 to 15 years ago that I had to adjust to.

And it had to do with sleeping.

Prior to this change,

I normally slept about seven to eight hours,

Probably like a normal person sleeps.

But one day I woke up and it had only been three hours.

I thought,

Hmm,

What's going on here?

I didn't worry much about it.

I just got up the next day,

Did my thing.

And the next day I slept better,

But not as long.

I began to sleep quite a bit less.

It shifted from seven to eight to about three to six every day.

I talked to people that I trusted to try to find out what happened.

And it appears that some of the changes I had been going through both for my eating habits and the way I quieted my mind helped me to start needing less sleep.

And so some of the changes I had been going through,

Both for my eating habits and the way I quieted my mind helped me to start needing less sleep.

Since that time,

That's about the amount of sleep that I need between three to six hours consistently.

So when I wake up sometimes at one o'clock in the morning,

I have a ritual.

Why typically it's just stay in bed.

But I may listen to some audio podcasts or audio book until either I fall back to sleep or at some point I just get up and begin my day.

But the one thing I don't do that definitely don't create a story at all about the suffering because I know if I need more sleep the next day,

I will.

If I don't,

I'll just get up.

And I found that that amount of sleep that I'm getting now has been very easy to adjust to.

And I like it because I have a lot more free time.

Now I could have,

As you probably can imagine,

Created quite a story about it because I know people who can't sleep very well and they definitely create stories about it.

And they go through a lot of things to change that.

Or I just flow with it and it goes quite well.

Now the second example I gave was about back pain.

And I know not everyone gets back pain,

But most of us seem to get it sometime in our lives.

I seem to get it about probably once every three years,

Three to five years where I get it.

And it's painful and it requires me to adjust my lifestyle a bit.

The main adjustment I make is instead of going to the gym and lift weights,

I use to shift to the pool and begin swimming more.

And I find that's a good way to relax my back pain and let my back heal.

But again,

I think we all know people who have back pain that really suffer from it.

And because of that suffering,

They often turn towards painkillers,

Alcohol,

Or other things to help alleviate that pain.

Or perhaps the best thing for them might be to get out there and exercise their back and get it better until it heals instead of working so hard at avoiding that back pain.

I remember once attending a workshop on a guy who was an expert on back pain.

And he said that he had suffered from debilitating back pain.

But what had happened with him is he worked so hard not to re-injure it that he was barely moving.

And then one day he realized he could differentiate between back pain and back pain.

Back pain that would help him heal and back pain that would make him worse.

It was a very clear line.

And as long as he worked on things that caused him pain but was healing his back versus doing things that caused his back to get re-injured,

He began to get well and was walking normally within a week.

It was pretty amazing.

And if you've ever been an athlete or if you know of any athletes,

That's often what they do.

Instead of just giving their injury a rest,

They do things that cause them some pain.

But that pain allows that injury to heal.

I mean think of someone who like breaks their back and in the process of healing they have to go through physical therapy to start learning to walk again.

I mean of course those first few classes are going to be pretty awful.

But that ability to face that pain allows them to heal.

I think psychologically it's really the same mechanism.

What happens is there's a trauma,

Something psychologically upsetting happens.

What people tend to do is they try to suppress those feelings instead of dealing with them.

Because it's painful.

They avoid the pain which causes them to stay stuck the rest of their life.

I mean think of something intense like rape.

I mean it's a horrible experience.

But part of the healing process of rape is facing that pain,

Healing from it,

And not being afraid.

Not letting that person,

That perpetrator keep us from living anymore.

It's important when we go through traumas to face them instead of walking away from them.

Or what we're actually doing is suppressing them.

So now I want to take this conversation one step further but to a very deep place.

I don't know if you've ever heard of this term before but it's called asceticism.

And here's a Google definition of that word.

Asceticism.

Severe self-discipline and avoidance of all forms of indulgence typically for religious reasons.

I don't know if you know this but all religions,

Hinduism,

Buddhism,

Christianity,

Islamic faith,

They all have a long history of asceticism in their faith.

The people that actively seek physical sensations that cause pain in order to develop their spirituality.

The way this can manifest is in numerous ways.

The two most famous examples are that of Jesus and the Buddha.

Jesus,

For example,

Went 40 days and nights without eating.

The Buddha went over six years where he lived a very Spartan life,

Barely eating,

And to the point where he became so enaciated you could see his ribs.

And in the Buddha's case he was a prince so he clearly chose this physical path of suffering in order to reach enlightenment.

Right now,

As I'm recording this,

There are monks in India and Tibet who live in very small caves.

Sometimes about the size of a human body and they live there for years.

Someone brings them food but they barely live on anything and they do it for years.

And it's their way of developing their spirituality.

I know these are extreme cases but the point is they're using physiological pain to develop their spirituality.

And I've spent years personally studying these people and I've determined that many of them,

Not all,

But many of them truly reach advanced stages of human development through physiological suffering.

They don't get worse.

They're not messed up.

They're actually often extremely developed human beings.

And it's because of their physiological suffering that they reach these high levels of development.

I mean,

If you're curious,

Just start delving into the research.

This experience of asceticism has been going on for thousands of years and there's a lot of research in how do these people really develop into amazing human beings.

Now,

I don't want you to think I've gone a little cuckoo and I'm recommending that we go through physiological pain to be happy.

I'm not recommending that.

But what I am suggesting is that instead of running away from pain,

Instead of suppressing pain,

Perhaps,

Just perhaps,

We can see pain as something that can help us grow.

There's something we can learn from that we can use it as a tool for growth instead of as something that's just we have to bear and suffer until it goes away.

I think we really have a tendency in the modern age to suppress pain,

To push it away,

To get rid of it ASAP.

And I'm not sure that's the healthiest approach to pain.

If we try to push it away,

I think there's a tendency of it to grow and to get worse.

Again,

It's much like not being able to sleep at night.

If we start fighting that lack of sleep,

We're probably going to stay awake.

If we just flow with it and say,

You know,

I can make this work,

Then what we'll find is we'll relax and that relaxation helps us to do a lot better with pain.

But not only that,

Just perhaps,

Just perhaps,

Instead of running away from the pain or even flowing with the pain,

See pain as,

Hmm,

I wonder if there's something I can learn from this.

Maybe it isn't bad sometimes to go through physical pain and maybe it's something we can even seek out a little bit.

Let me use an example.

I think if we're out of physical shape and we start working out,

We're going to be in pain,

Perhaps a lot of pain.

But I think we'd all would agree that that pain is necessary for our bodies to get healthy.

So let me carry it a little bit further.

If you'll be patient with me,

I know there's going to be some listeners who are struggling with pretty severe pain right now.

I know there are because a lot of people do and maybe we aren't today,

But someday we might.

What if instead of saying,

Hmm,

This is bad,

I need to do everything in my power to alleviate this pain.

We saw the pain as perhaps a teacher,

Something that we can not only not run away from,

But something we can embrace.

I mean,

The truth is people have been doing this for thousands of years.

They didn't have painkillers in the past.

And not only that,

There are people to this very day who actually seek some form of discomfort as it's a way to grow spiritually.

Isn't that interesting?

So what if right now we're in pain and instead of saying,

I need to get rid of this pain,

We say,

Huh,

This pain could help me grow.

This may actually be a good thing,

Something I could actually seek for development.

I mean,

Just by saying that,

Just by looking at it that way,

It's going to soften the pain.

And mind you,

It may be a crazy idea,

But it's a crazy idea that people have been doing for thousands of years.

And some of these people have gone far in life,

Have truly developed into beautiful souls.

So if we're suffering right now,

Or if we do suffer someday in the future,

Physiologically,

And it's painful,

Perhaps if we don't fight it so hard and try so quickly to get away from it and perhaps can embrace it,

It won't cause us so much suffering.

Instead,

We can actually grow from it and learn from it and see it as our teacher.

I mean,

Again,

This may be an utterly crazy idea,

But it's one worth considering because in life,

Sometimes life throws us some really difficult challenges.

And we're listening to this podcast to prepare for those so that not only can we grow from them,

Not only can we handle them,

But we can actually embrace them and make it so that our lives,

No matter what,

Are still beautiful,

That we can find happiness,

No matter what,

That we can find peace in any situation,

No matter what.

Probably one of the most beautiful souls that ever lived that we can look to as an example is St.

Francis of Assisi.

He is truly a beautiful soul that definitely embraced asceticism.

We may not want to go down the path he went down,

But he is someone who lived well with physiological pain.

And he did a lot to change our world,

To be a beautiful place,

Not just for himself,

But for others too.

So when we face those times of pain,

Instead of running from them,

Instead of trying to numb them immediately,

Perhaps we can say,

I'm going to perhaps embrace this just a bit and see if I can't develop into a more beautiful soul because of this pain.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

If you are enjoying these podcasts and finding them helpful,

I'd love a review from you.

Or if you want to learn more about this podcast and the world of happiness,

Please go to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Thanks for wise thoughts to begin my day.

This was a very interesting and uplifting talk. 🌈

Very interesting 🙏

I’m loving these podcasts. Such lovely reminders. I could relate to all the examples. I’m feeling happier already. Thank you. 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

I love that mantra ‘accept what is, love what is’. Thank you.

Accept what is. Love what is. What a powerful podcast. Really sung to my soul. Thank you for sharing a new way of looking at pain 🙏🏻🙏🏻

This speaks to my soul. Thank you. 🙇

Nice perspective on pain & pertinent timing! Thank You 🙏🏽

Thank you for your insight, gentleness, and hope! What an enlightening podcast. Namaste 🙏🏽

Makes perfect sense! And unlike other practices, this one is much easier to do do in real time. It’s a charm at the dentist or headache. And I can also personally endorse the sleep technique. 😴 Many a good book I’ve been eager to read or articles to catch up on have been way more pleasurable than not being able to go back to sleep after having been woken from a deep sleep. What really struck me is this notion of the tendency, hope or expectation of continuous happiness that has crept into our society. Perhaps it stems from anxiety fatigue from financial, political uncertainty. At any rate, many thanks for an intriguing and wise talk.

I gained a kernel of life truth from this pod cast. Thank you.

This is exactly what I needed to hear as I was lying awake hours before I intended on starting my day and worrying about how tired I would be because of this.

I’ve always had the tendency to make things inconvenient for myself or more difficult than they needed to be. That led me to suffer and believe this to be a characteristic I need to change in order to suffer less. I’ve always been taught to embrace pain, but it finally sunk in that pain isn’t bad.

Thank you, and may anyone reading this have a wonderful day

Loved this 💕 thank you. Embrace life and all that it brings 🙏🏻 Namaste x

Amazing experience..whole mind and body are in peace..

A very interesting and enlightening perspective.

Really enjoyed this. I feel that today people get so caught up in the drama of pain they make it so much worse! Our mind is so powerful, people forget how powerful their perception is 😊

This podcast is so true for me! I've had times of not sleeping well & I made myself miserable during my work day constantly thinking of how tired I am! The same with pain! It's all about what story I tell myself about what I'm going through! Essentially, what I resist persists! What I push against can appear to get worse because I'm saying, "I shouldn't be going through this! It's so bad!" Thank you for this reminder, that I can choose how I feel about whatever is in front of me!

I loved this Podcast because I have been learning how to to embrace my pain, both physically ( migraines) and emotionally. The more I understand what the pain is trying to teach me and just accept “ what is” the better I feel!😊 Thank ~you💗

I absolutely agree and love what you just said. However I am a sissy and when I have neck pain for months on end I end up at the doctors for some help. Next time I will embrace it and I will say this spasm has something to teach me. Thank you so much for this and I believe it is so important for all of us to grow!