Therapy and spirituality and suffering

Here is a new riff on therapy religion and suffering. It seems to me that both counselling/psychotherapy and religion/spirituality are responses to the human reality of suffering. Both try and help us reduce our causes of suffering and both help us process and live with suffering.

I think most of us a lot of the time are in denial of death, in denial of suffering. We expect medicine or therapy to cure us of death and relieve us of suffering. It seems to me that life is not like that. Of course we can make healthier life choices and this is important. However, there is a whole vast area within which we have no control. Trying to control the uncontrolable or chaotic or seeking to blame others for the inevitably suffering we have is futile if at times a necessary distraction.

It is very difficult to live with an awareness of one's own physical mortality. It is very freeing when we can and when I feel my fragility I feel extra grateful for the life I still have. I can't control my future in any realistic way other than living as well as I can so gratitude for what I have in my life now seems appropriate. I am glad to be reasonably fit and still able to think and feel and to work well and to have people around me who I love. It is enough for now so I am thankful.

What do you think?

Bill on bike