{"id":809,"date":"2010-06-11T06:49:06","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T06:49:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/ourladyofweightloss\/2010\/06\/optional-suffering-1.html"},"modified":"2010-06-11T06:49:06","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T06:49:06","slug":"optional-suffering-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ourladyofweightloss\/2010\/06\/optional-suffering-1.html","title":{"rendered":"Optional Suffering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hi there Tushkateers*!  One of the many magical, enlightening and transformative topics that was covered this week at my <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/ourladyofweightloss\/2010\/04\/how-to-live-a-life-you-love--.html\">Omega Institute of Holistic Studies workshop<\/a>, &#8220;Our Lady of Weight Loss enLIGHTens,&#8221; was about &#8220;Optional Suffering.&#8221;<br \/>\nThere are two things that we do that make us miserable; that cause great suffering &#8230; optional suffering.  The first is <strong>to judge<\/strong>; the second is <strong>to have expectations.<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>We are judging machines<\/strong>.  I suspect that when you today pay attention to your thoughts and note each and every time you judge something (from &#8230; the coffee is good &#8211; to- oh no, it&#8217;s gray outside), you will find that there&#8217;s a whole lotta&#8217; judging going on.<br \/>\nJust for today, we are invite you to experiment with us.  Just for today, instead of labeling things &#8216;good&#8217; or &#8216;bad,&#8217; let&#8217;s just say,<em> &#8216;it just is.<\/em>&#8216;<br \/>\nThe number on the scale &#8230; &#8216;it just is.&#8217;  Your breakfast &#8230; &#8216;it just is.&#8217;  The state of affairs in the office &#8230; &#8216;it just is.&#8217;  It&#8217;s neither &#8216;good&#8217; nor &#8216;bad&#8217;; &#8216;it just is.&#8217;<br \/>\nIf things are neither good nor bad; if things just are, you can&#8217;t be subjected to the push n&#8217; pull, the ups n&#8217; downs, the to and fros of good vs. bad.  &#8216;It just is&#8217; is a place of balance.<br \/>\nAnd in this place of balance you will not only learn to accept things the way that they are, but you will see things in an entirely new light and with it your expectations will dissipate into thin air!<br \/>\nYou will no longer expect people to act in a certain way, for you to be a certain way; you will take things as they come and be content, because you will no longer be disappointed.<br \/>\n&#8220;When people see some things as beautiful,<br \/>\nother things become ugly.<br \/>\nWhen people see some things as good,<br \/>\nother things become bad.&#8221;<br \/>\n~Lao Tzu<br \/>\n<em>Spread the word &#8230; NOT the icing!<br \/>\nJanice<\/em><br \/>\n*A Tushkateer is a member of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ourladyofweightloss.com\">Kick in the Tush Club<\/a>!<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/community.beliefnet.com\/kickinthetushclub\">Beliefnet.com\/Kick in the Tush Club Chapter!!!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two things that we do that make us miserable; that cause great suffering &#8230; optional suffering. The first is to judge; the second is to have expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":123,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,70,82,213,3,176],"tags":[671,1449,1982,3834,1943,190,317,3837,248],"class_list":["post-809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-happiness","category-janice-taylor","category-kick-in-the-tush-club","category-mental-health","category-motivation","category-weight-loss-coach-2","tag-how-to-lose-weight","tag-janice-taylor-weight-loss-coach","tag-kick-in-the-tush-clubs","tag-mental-health","tag-optional-suffering","tag-spiritual-weight-loss","tag-tushkateers","tag-weight-loss-motivation","tag-weight-loss-tips"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Optional Suffering - Our Lady of Weight Loss<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ourladyofweightloss\/2010\/06\/optional-suffering-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Optional Suffering - Our Lady of Weight Loss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There are two things that we do that make us miserable; that cause great suffering ... optional suffering. The first is to judge; the second is to have expectations.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ourladyofweightloss\/2010\/06\/optional-suffering-1.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Our Lady of Weight Loss\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-11T06:49:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Janice Taylor, Editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Optional Suffering - Our Lady of Weight Loss","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/ourladyofweightloss\/2010\/06\/optional-suffering-1.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Optional Suffering - Our Lady of Weight Loss","og_description":"There are two things that we do that make us miserable; that cause great suffering ... optional suffering. 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