An Inquiry: Feeling overwhelmed by stress. Contemplating suicide.
How We Would Respond: If you’re feeling suicidal seek professional intervention immediately. You can find suicide prevention help here: http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org
Stress and suicidal contemplation are caused by the exact same thing: they are caused by accepting thinking / judgment as true. If people would only come to understand, fully, that emotional suffering is caused by thinking — thinking, thinking, thinking! — the level of suffering in the world would drop enormously.
People believe that emotional suffering is caused by external circumstances — things that happen, or do not happen, within the world. This is wrong. Emotional suffering happens, only, when we accept upsetting thinking and judgments as the truth. If you want to accept your thinking and judgments as true okay, but do not falsely say that something outside of you is causing you to be upset.
It doesn’t work that way.
If accepting upsetting thinking / judgment as true is the cause of emotional suffering then the cure for emotional suffering is… do not accept upsetting thinking / judgment as true. If, however, you attempt to deny the truth of upsetting thinking and judgment you’re liable to feel as though you’re lying to yourself.
Rather than saying to yourself that your upsetting thinking and judgments are false, are not true, do not label them in any way — don’t label them true, don’t label them false, don’t label them at all; observe them but otherwise let them just be there.
