I teach spiritual freedom. I don’t teach you new spiritual beliefs, manifestation aka magical thinking, or other spiritual superpowers. I truly care about your spiritual freedom. This word gets used a lot these days, and you may wonder what spiritual freedom really is. What is all this about?  I will explain and discuss it in this article.

 

What is Spiritual Freedom?

It is simple: Spiritual freedom is freedom from suffering. I discern between suffering and pain. Suffering is different from pain, because it is self-created, psychological suffering, that is often self perpetuating. It gets re-created again and again. With pain, let’s say you stumble and hurt your knee. You are in pain. That’s it. At least, if you don’t create suffering in addition to the pain in this situation by getting angry, despaired, or create some other story about how unfair life is, or why this is always happening to you. This is where suffering comes in. It’s all the stories around it and the emotions and body reactions unconsciously chosen by you.

Does this mean that every time you experience emotions, you are suffering? No. Emotions are natural. They come and go. Spiritual freedom is not about being less of a human. If a loved one dies, you are probably going to feel sad and grieve the loss. If not, that is OK, too. And to take this further, spiritual freedom leaves us wide open to more and more different possibilities in life. Maybe you feel deeply at peace at the funeral. Spiritual freedom accepts every moment for what it is.

But just because it is simple, does not mean it is easy to dig out all the roots of suffering. They run very, very deep. They are most likely entangled in many different ways. And they probably spread out much wider than you realize when you first start to dig into your ego and discover how much suffering you are creating in your life.

 

The many Types of Suffering

And there are a lot of ways people create suffering in their lives.

Some of the suffering is more obvious, and I recommend to start looking at the most obvious ways you create suffering. People suffer because their bodies are not healthy. There can be physical pain with this one too, but there is most likely a story around how you actually ended up in a miserable state of health. Of course, there can be sudden illnesses that hit people absolutely unexpected. But that’s not what I am speaking of. Truth is, most of the sick people out there today are people who are responsible for their poor nutrition, that they are overweight, for their lack of proper exercise, and so on. So they create suffering. People suffer because of unresolved trauma, so they suffer because they are not taking care of themselves mentally and on a psychological level. They suffer because they were forced to stuff down emotions over time (Like with childhood trauma) or decided to do so later in life, so the pot of old, not expressed and felt emotions is boiling and almost boiling over. This often leads to different addictions, which creates suffering. People suffer because they are putting themselves in bad financial situations, job situations, or social/relationship situations.

Take a look at this first: What are the most obvious ways I am creating suffering? Where do I suffer in my day-to-day life? Then slowly work your way through those outer layers. Please, do not rush to take on a very deep layer because you heard or think it’s a spiritual thing to do. You don’t have to let go of your fear of death/our basic drive to survive now. This is often pride and the ego that are trying to achieve something and it will most likely get you into trouble if you didn’t peel away the outer layers first. This will make you stronger in your mind, heart and body and you want to practice that for a couple of years before going really, really deep.

Then there are a more subtle ways of suffering. People suffer because they think they need to look attractive. They suffer because they think they need to be successful. They suffer because they think they need a ton of money/romantic relationships/family/always the latest iPhone/the hundredth kitchen device and so on. Some suffer because they want enlightenment now. Or they want to feel blissful and happy all the time and want to re-create experiences they had that felt good to them. I’ve heard of people wanting to maintain an orgasmic experience for 1, 2, 3 or 100 days. And this is really the same ego as the person wanting success or the latest iPhone wrapped in a spiritual cloak. Some people think those things are not really a problem. But they are. They make you suffer and create deep wounds in us that need to be adressed. Think about how much time and energy you need to put into those goals to keep those beliefs alive in you and reinforce them. And are you ever satisfied? No. The ego is never satisfied. And so the cycles of suffering go on and on.

At the bottom of suffering are our primal drives to survive and procreate. Most people are afraid of death. Most people are afraid of pain. And our primal goal is to maintain our species. If we procreate, we are successful. But I won’t go too much into this very deep ones, because that is not where I am. And it is not where most people are on their spiritual path anyways. I simply want you to you recognize that they are down there. 

 

One Step at a Time

Now that you know more about suffering, maybe you want to know: And how do I get out of this mess?

Firstly, I encourage you to take it one step at a time. As I mentioned earlier, start with the obvious ego issues. And be sincere. Really be where you are. Only with sincerity can we really start to identify our many layers of suffering.

And this is how to start: Become aware of the ways you are suffering. Identify them. Start journaling. Start asking more questions in and about your life. If you truly want to see the truth about how you make yourself suffer, you will. And: It is helpful to have support with this. This is where spiritual teachers come in. They can show you some of the things that you’re may not able to see about yourself. Or you may realize some things on your own after years, but with a spiritual teacher, they can show you a more direct route.

Becoming aware of the issues is the start. What needs to follow is a release on the heart/emotional level and the body level. I recommend getting support with that, too. Healing and releasing issues/attachements/letting go of suffering can be intense. The deeper the wound and the issue, the more support you want to have. My experience is this: It is immensely helpful to have a spiritual teacher and or community, therapist, friends,… that are able to provide a safe and unconditionally loving and accepting space for you during this process. I am incredibly grateful for all the support I got and still get from my own therapists, teacher, and spiritual community. 

 

Undoing Suffering and Discovering Freedom

As you work your way through this mess and you let go of and release more and more ego layers, you are working your way to true spiritual freedom / liberation / enlightenment / illumination / and all the other words we created to describe this space after undoing our suffering. They are all the same. And it can be done by you, here, in this lifetime. 

Again, it is simple, but not necessarily easy. It can take years and years of inner work. It takes patience, honesty, dedication, perseverance, commitment and a willingness to be vulnerable. If you don’t have these, you can and will develop them.

It can be done. And with each little bit of newly found freedom, you’ll experience life and yourself anew. Imagine how much more flexible you are and how much more range of motion you have without carrying a backpack full of heavy stones on your back all the time. That’s a bit how it feels (: