Emotional Intelligence for Personal Growth - 3

I thought Dave was done with his series after part V but I am so glad he decided to continue this one of a kind series. The sixth installment is the best one so far!!
Beautiful piece of writing using a metaphor of two darts implying pain and suffering. Suffering is mostly induced by self while pain is a fact of life. Again, I highly recommend reading this and might change your life. Mindfulness helps us to minimize suffering:

"Suffering is largely a psychological construction that is largely unconsciously self-generated. Embedding in our experience, we are victims to our own self-constructions. Mindfulness lifts us out of embeddedness and gives us the perspective to see our self-constructions as separate from our selves and our environment. Mindfulness is:

• Non-conceptual. Awareness without absorption in our thought processes.
• Present-centered. Always in the present moment. Thoughts about our experience are one step removed from the present moment.
• Non-judgmental. Awareness cannot occur freely if we want it to be different than it is.
• Intentional. Attention is directed, returning attention to the present moment gives mindful awareness continuity over time.
• Participant observation. Mindfulness is not detached witnessing, but rather experiencing the mind and body more intimately without immersion.
• Nonverbal. The experience cannot be captures in words, because awareness occurs before words can arise.
• Exploratory. Mindful awareness allows investigating subtler levels of perception.
• Liberating. Every moment of mindful awareness provides freedom from conditioned suffering. (Germer et al., 2005)"
  
  
  This reminds me a famous quote by Mark Twain -
  "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened."