Hi! My name is Sandhan and I’m an addict! Well, I’m a reformed addict and not ashamed to say so. I’ve been (semi) addicted to chocolate, booze, cigarettes and drama for at least some time during my life and even had more than a passing interest in recreational drugs in my younger years, but I confess that my greatest addiction has been to my suffering….

It’s fast become the 20^th Century’s ultimate addictive habit, particularly amongst the middle classes in the West, and as we move into a period of greater understanding and awakening, now more than ever it is time for us to take a vertical leap in Consciousness and evolve beyond our self-indulgence, grow up, take responsibility for ourselves, and frankly, stop complaining

Strong words? Perhaps, but it is also not the time to mince our words either. I don’t believe we have that much time to indulge in self pity and polite moderation any more. The planet needs us to step up and hold ourselves accountable, and as long as we indulge in our addiction to suffering, we will never grow up, either as an individual or a species.

“Pain in life is inevitable but suffering is not.
Pain is what the world does to you.
Suffering is what you do to yourself.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”.

There was once a poor man who used to pray to God for a treasure that would make him rich. One night in a dream he heard a voice which said to him, “Tomorrow a monk will pass by your home, asking for food. He has the treasure you seek. Ask him for it.”

The next day a monk knocked on his door and asked for something to eat. Remembering his dream, the man said to the monk,”Last night I heard a voice in my dream which told me that a holy man would pass by my house today and ask for something to eat and that he carried the very treasure I have longed for for so long. The voice told me to ask you for it, so give me the treasure now that will make me wealthy.”

The monk fished in his habit and brought out the brightest, largest diamond you could imagine: the biggest in the world. “Is this the treasure you speak of? I found it in the forest. Here, take it.” The man seized the diamond jubilantly while the monk finished his food and then continued on his way.

That night the man could not sleep at all for fear of losing his brand new treasure.”This house is not safe,” he thought to himself. “Anyone could break in and steal the diamond and I can’t secure the house as I don’t have the money to do that. Perhaps I should simply sell the jewel, but as everyone here is so very poor, who would have the money to buy it from me? And if I were to travel to somewhere else, maybe I might get robbed on my way there.”

The next morning, bright and early taking the diamond with him, he quickly made his way down the hill where he had seen the monk disappearing. After running for hours, he finally came across the monk sitting peacefully under a tree, serenely contemplating the Nature all around him with an expression of absolute benediction and stillness. “I’ve come to return your diamond,” gasped the man, “I have realised that this is not the treasure I seek at all. What I truly need is the treasure you carry within which allows you to detach, without suffering from such a valuable jewel.”

The man in this parable recognized something much more valuable than a diamond. What he saw was non attachment and inner joy. When we experience inner awareness we naturally let go of all our concepts about what we think we need in order to be fulfilled and happy. The question we could choose to ask ourselves whenever we find ourselves losing the plot and sliding into suffering, is “What is standing in the way right now of me experiencing joy and bliss?” So what is standing in our way? And who am I without my story?

As children we experience life spontaneously, innocently and with an open heart, but by the time we become adults we have frequently become jaded, cynical and disillusioned by the apparent lack of ‘miracle’ in our daily lives. Worse still, we have had to find someone or something to blame for our disappointment in what we believe life has not delivered to us as a way to justify and rationalize that we are not in any way to blame personally for our lot in life. It consoles us to feel we are powerless, weak and a victim to our circumstances. It relieves us of any need to step up and be mature.

Many people who refuse to acknowledge their current situation, finding it just too painful to accept, feel the unconscious need to blot out the hurt and resort to some kind of mind numbing cure-all, whether that be drugs, alcohol, food, sex… or as I am suggesting with potentially political incorrectness… their suffering.. Suffering has been described as a psychological or spiritual condition that robs individuals of their capacity to find solace or peace in their present state, but why do we get hooked into that? Mustn’t there be some pay off, some secondary gain for us to create a whole lifestyle and lifelong commitment to our pain, suffering and our story? I have noticed and do believe that misery most surely does love company! There are frequently people who meet some of their own needs by encouraging us to wallow and accompanying us in that.

And no, I am not saying that we should just accept our situation with resignation and bitterness, or false humility which masks a layer of resentment and pain, but I am saying that we have a choice in every single moment of our lives to decide what something means, how we will interpret it, what we will choose to believe and consequently, how we will behave. Nor am I saying we should belittle some of the terrible things which have happened to us, but I am saying we have a choice about where we ‘live’ on an emotional scale.

So back to my story. Remember I am entitled to write about this stuff because I know. I was a ‘suffering addict’ for the major part of my life and still have momentary stumbling blocks when the craving gets too strong. It’s a habit I’m still weaning myself off of, but like cigarettes, the craving can still sometimes catch me unawares and then I need all my resolve to resist the temptation to relapse.

I had an average childhood by common standards. As a child of the 60’s it was very easy to look back at my parents, indulge in therapy and spend years recriminating them for not being perfect. I spent a long time being angry, always with a story about something that wasn’t right or could‘ve been different, and while all that was going on, I was missing my life, living in the past or the future, but never in the present.

Tony Robbins, of whom I am an ardent fan and thanks to whom in part I have been able to break my addiction, says in his Human Needs psychology, that everything we do, we do for a reason, and that reason is always trying to meet in some way, shape or form, one of our 6 fundamental Human Needs. The choice is to decide whether we are meeting those needs at a level which serves us or not, and if not, then to find another behavior with which to substitute it for greater gratification. Furthermore when a behavior meets three or more of the six Human Needs at a star-quality rating of 8 or more, we become addicted to it. Voila our global addiction to suffering!

Intrinsically all human behavior is driven by the instinct to fulfill one or more of those six primary human needs. Unhappiness, emotional distress and all dysfunctional behavior arises from a person’s inability to find a consistent way to meet his/her needs in a constructive way. A life of fulfillment requires that all six needs be met consistently in a positive and inspiring way, and you can group them all into two broad categories. One group fulfills our primal needs and the other our more spiritual needs.

The 6 Human Needs are Certainty, Variety / Uncertainty, Love or Connection, Significance, Growth and Contribution, so let’s consider the behavior of addiction to suffering in the context of those six needs. Think about how you feel when you are sharing your ‘story’, either with yourself or some other willing participant. What needs are you meeting? Do you feel certain? Is the feeling one you routinely recognize? On a scale of 1-10, how certain do you feel?

Uncertainty? How does that apply to your suffering? Is there plenty of variety in the story as you relate it over and over in different formats? Significance? That’s a biggie for many of us… we certainly feel very important having a big and dramatic story to tell. Not only that but do you recognize the ‘my Dad’s bigger than your Dad’ syndrome? How significant do you feel as you compare your suffering to someone else’s? Is your suffering worse than theirs?

The 4th need is the need for Love and Connection. We all need to feel connected with someone or something else, be it a person, an ideal or a sense of our own identity, no matter how inaccurate. Connection may take the form of love or something far more superficial. One can still feel connection even if it’s by means of an aggressive relationship or a depressing story. For some people any form of connection is better than nothing.

Everyone, without exception, finds a way to get these first four needs met, even if it’s in a very low quality and sometimes negative way. For instance, the compelling, overwhelming need for Love & Connection explains why someone will stay in an abusive relationship where as terrible as the ill-treatment is, it is nonetheless providing a form of connection.

The fifth and sixth needs are not always met by everyone, especially those who still operate from a level of blame and suffering, yet in order to live a life of happiness and success we must fulfill these last two needs for growth and contribution. The fulfillment of the spiritual needs generates more sustainable joy versus momentary pleasure associated with fulfilling only our primal needs. So it’s time we dropped our stories of blame and guilt and moved on. I’m sorry if this offends you.

Suffering is not in the fact, but in our perception of the fact.


There is an all too common belief in the world today that we can transform the way we feel about a situation by changing it rather than by changing something in ourselves. We think that by transforming the content that we are going to be happy with it, but in reality the situation has nothing to do with our happiness or our sadness at all. It is all in the way we choose to perceive the situation.

When we stop believing we know how things are supposed to look, when we stop complaining and rediscover the magic of the unknown, when we stop using our addiction to suffering as a way of meeting our needs, only then will we will find ourselves free from fear, open to receive the abundance and blessings of the Universe and innocently able to experience the Divine perfection of everything. When I am able to turn on the daily news and see reports of excesses of joy and bliss instead of catalogues of misery and pain I’ll know our collective appetite for this kind of diet has transformed and humanity will have cooperatively evolved.

This article is brought to you by Sandhan, co-owner and founder of Soul Search Publishing, a personal development and self help publishing company whose goal is to help customers realize personal happiness and success. Sandhan has also co-authored The Anti Stress Book with her business partner Maxim Haim, as well as being responsible for numerous blogs, Twitter accounts, websites and online articles. But her biggest joy is when she knows she’s had a positive impact and made a difference in someone’s life!