Wisdom From "The Princess Bride" |
Acceptance is about making space for thoughts and feelings, even the painful ones.
Suffering comes from trying not have the thoughts and feelings you're having.
Try an exercise to observe painful feelings with care and curiosity.
Late last year, we lost one of the world’s greatest film makers when Rob Reiner was murdered alongside his wife. He was a gifted comedic actor, a screenwriter, the director of two of my all-time favourite films, and most importantly, a mensch.
A quote from one of Reiner's films that I regularly use is from the Man in Black in The Princess Bride. He says, ‘Life is Pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.’
We were raised to believe that life should be better than this – more fun, more successful, more comfortable, more cool stuff, less sadness, less worry, less bad stuff. We’re given this message repeatedly: Be good and good things come to you; work hard and you’ll get what you deserve. Every ad promises happiness, every social media influencer promises success. Parents, teachers, religions, and politicians all promise us that we should be able to get more if we work for it and deserve it.
We are left feeling bad for having feelings that we can’t avoid.
Pain comes to all of us at different times, in different forms, and different sizes. Often it feels awful or unfair. Pain doesn’t only befall those who deserve it or have done bad things or haven’t looked after themselves.
There are sensible things we can do to reduce pain. Painkillers help…except when they........