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Hello and Welcome To My Blog! My name is Lauren Cartwright, MS, LCPC. I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor in the state of Illinois. My primary work over the past 20-plus years has been with clients diagnosed with Serious Mental Illness and Substance Abuse. I am currently in private practice working with clients with anxiety, depression, grief/bereavement and or relationship issues.
This blog is dedicated to mental health concepts. Every two weeks, I will take a mental health term or concept that corresponds with the letter of the alphabet. I will give my thoughts and insight on that concept in hopes that it can be something helpful and inspiring to you. So, as you can guess, today is the letter “A.” It’s “A” day! The concept that I have selected is nothing I can take credit for creating (although I would love to). It is something, however, I have adopted into my personal and clinical work. Without further ado, the concept for today is “avoidable suffering.”
In life, some suffering is imminent, expected. There are circumstances that can occur to us and/or our loved ones that cause us to suffer. They are totally out of our control (read-unavoidable suffering). These are the “hills and valleys” in life. We must learn to ride the wave of life. This falls under the category of “it is what it is.” What then, is avoidable suffering?
Avoidable suffering is suffering that we choose. You may ask, why would I choose to suffer? That’s absurd! We choose suffering by the choices that we make. Usually, in pursuit of something we may perceive as good or attractive, but has dire consequences. Think of being lactose intolerant, but indulging in a pint of ice cream anyway. The taste, texture and all of the elements of the ice cream taste good to our palate, but the gut wrenching bellyache that follows is horrible. It makes us regret the decision to eat the ice cream in the first place. This is an example of avoidable suffering.
But how do we avoid suffering? Does that mean we can make no mistakes? No. That is impossible. Humans are going to make mistakes. We must just make sure we make better decisions, not based on being impulsive or “in the moment”, but instead, based on a decision that is in full awareness of the potential consequences. Sometimes the consequences should give us pause, and can even lead to us not participate in the activity in the first place. Look at the ice cream example-we could have avoided the bellyache if we chose not to eat the ice cream at all-because we thought about the consequences.
We can make our lives easier by honoring that life will come with some suffering, while at the same time making well-thought-out and responsible choices, choosing to control what we can. We have to be gracious and patient with ourselves, while at the same time committing to do better each day. We can avoid some of own suffering by altering our decisions. Think of how empowering this is, to affect our lives and our destinies in a positive way, of our own free will. All of us have the power within ourselves to take control of our lives, we just have to have to courage to do it. And you can, you can do it. I believe in you. Everyone please take good care of yourselves and have a wonderful and blessed day.
Lauren Cartwright, MS, LCPC
