Suffering becomes meaningful when it teaches us how to move from survival mode into real relationship.
To understand why that is possible, we have to start with what kind of world the Creator chose to make.
Seeing creation as an act of the Creator’s free choice and compassion gives us a deeper way to understand human nature.
What kind of world did the Creator choose to make?
The Creator did not create because He was missing something. According to Chassidus [Jewish mysticism], creation comes from His free choice.
Out of compassion, He chose to give even the lowest physical reality a place in His purpose and the possibility of real relationship with Himself.
By real relationship, I mean learning to trust, care, stay honest, accept responsibility, express goodness, and remain connected even when difficult emotions are present.
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Why does real relationship require free choice?
The same free choice that makes suffering possible also makes intimacy possible.
Real relationship requires created beings to have real free choice.
It also requires the possibility of experiencing separation.
If creation only experienced complete oneness [goodness] with the Creator, there would be no felt distance to cross, no struggle between selfishness and goodness, and no meaningful choice to move toward relationship.
Once a created being can experience itself as separate, it can also experience fear, loss, rejection, loneliness, and feeling unloved.
That intense overwhelm can push the nervous system into survival mode.
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What happens when we live in survival mode?
In survival mode, a person is not mainly asking:
“How do I build trust and relationship?”
The nervous system is focused on protection, control, escape, or getting immediate needs met.
That can show up through people-pleasing, where we try to stay safe by keeping other people happy or avoiding conversations.
It can also show up through narcissistic patterns, where we try to stay safe through control, image, admiration, blame, or making our own needs more important than another person’s experience.
Created beings can then use their free choice from inside that survival mode.
People can hurt each other, manipulate, abandon, attack, ignore responsibilities, or protect themselves at another person’s expense.
Much of human suffering comes from created beings using free choice while living through survival mode.
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How do we transform what suffering produces inside us?
The goal is not to pretend suffering itself is good.
The goal is to transform what suffering produces inside us.
Pain can make us feel even more afraid, alone, angry, selfish, or unloved.
It can make separation feel more real.
But we can develop the emotional skills needed to move from survival mode toward relationship mode.
That means developing awareness, compassion, boundaries, responsibility, self-forgiveness, and the ability to stay connected while experiencing difficult emotions.
Then pain does not have to keep producing more pain.
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How can a painful experience become a place of intimacy?
An experience that once made us feel unloved can become a place where we learn to receive and express deeper compassion.
An experience that once pushed us toward separation can become a place where we choose trust, goodness, and deeper intimacy.
Here, intimacy means something practical.
It means being able to stay in real relationship, to care, trust, tell the truth, respect boundaries, accept responsibility, and express goodness even when fear, hurt, or selfish desire is present.
In that sense, we become co-partners in creation.
By doing the work ourselves instead of simply receiving the final result, we become able to enjoy the World to Come without shame.
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How do we use the free choice the Creator gives us?
The Creator gives us existence, free choice, and the possibility of relationship.
We use that free choice to develop the emotional capacity to live in relationship mode and bring more goodness into physical life.
Through that process, the human personality becomes a vessel that can hold and express the same light that caused creation in the first place, the Creator’s free choice and compassion.
We take a world where separation and suffering are possible and help turn that very darkness into a place where the purpose of creation can be revealed through deeper intimacy, through people learning how to trust, care, take responsibility, and choose goodness even when survival mode pulls them in the opposite direction.
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Related guides: There has to be one source of existence or nothing would exist
How does the deepest relationship happen?
Relationship with the Creator begins when you feel awe
What if honesty threatens a relationship?
Healthy beliefs of the world of souls
Practicing compassion vs self compassion
#NextSelf #kabbalah #biblestudy #religion
“The Infinite Creator gave us real free choice. We can use it to create more suffering, or become partners in revealing more goodness.”
Explore the NextSelf Blog. Start with this post explaining the world of souls. And my Youtube. Content is published to this facebook first and a few days later, to the blog.
The blog lists all the difference patterns to study, understanding patterns is how one can develop 'Daas' [felt knowing].
Update: As awe, trust, and love deepen, they can allow greater openness and intimacy with the Creator. That intimacy can include sadness when you notice how much more of His goodness can be revealed.