When someone we love dies, where do they go? What is death?

These are stories. 

They may be universal. We may all suffer immensely, but we are suffering a story. If your friend is moving away forever but going to live at Disney World, their favorite place on earth, you’re not really that sad. So it is our stories that we believe about death that make us suffer.

In regard to something we may know more about, such as a loved one who is being abused or bullied or suffering something in their life, they are living their story and you are witnessing their story. That’s not to say the story is not real, or that it’s not descriptive of a reality, or that the suffering is not real. It’s simply to remember that they are in a story and we are in a story.

Being aware of this doesn’t diminish anyone’s suffering. It simply means to always be aware that these stories are happening, that this is a story, that’s a story. They’re just stories. And there may be real suffering, just like there is in any story.

But our suffering doesn’t alleviate their suffering. In fact, it adds suffering to this world.

Every story is misleading. Every story is a low-resolution simulation of the universe. It can’t encapsulate everything. So we boil it down to a few simple things that our simple brains can understand.

If we want to avoid worrying, if we want to avoid taking on the worries of others, we simply recognize that a story is being told. It’s about staying aware of the fact that I am reacting to a story. It is not objective reality. It’s one person’s subjective truth.

And I don’t have to adopt their story. I don’t have to adopt anyone’s story. Even if the whole world has a story, I don’t have to adopt it. What’s normal isn’t always wise. It isn’t always true.

So I get to choose. But we only get to choose when we stay aware that this story is happening right now.

Stories move us to tears, to laughter. They’re very powerful. We get lost in stories. We don’t even know we’re in one.

But when we become aware of the story, that it’s just a story, that it is how we’ve been raised, what we’ve been brought up to believe, then we are free. We are free to say, not this story, that story. We’re free to say no story. Peace.

The world is full of suffering. Everyone’s life will be full of suffering, full of pain and loss and illness and dealing with cruelty. There is no escape. No escape.

The question is only: how do we respond? How do we want to respond? How do we want to help, if we can? How do we want to feel in these situations?

We simply remember that we’re watching a story. We’re watching a true story, but it is still a story. Everything’s a story. Everything in our mind is a story. We don’t see just this moment with no relation to the previous moment and no relation to the future moment. We are always creating a story.

If it were just this moment, we could all deal with this moment. But we accumulate moments and create stories. And that is where a great deal of suffering happens.

Almost all suffering is from the past. Very little suffering is in just this moment, because there are way more moments in the past than there are of this one moment.

Every single person is living in their story. There are 8 billion stories, 8 billion narrators, 8 billion cameramen and women on this planet. The news, if you want the saddest, most disturbing, horrible stories, that’s where you look. And it can be very challenging.

Whether it’s someone at work, someone in the news, or someone on social media sharing a very heartbreaking story, it can be very hard to witness. Our story, part of it, is watching their story. And the only way to not let it all consume you is to maintain awareness of your story, their story, and how these stories come together and become one story.

We are great storytellers. It’s what makes us human.

But if we think we are slaves to whatever story pops into our mind, we’re not free. We can change that story. But most importantly, we can be aware of that story. Through awareness, we can change it. Through awareness, we can be free from all the stories.

Other people’s stories are their stories. We are here to help. We’re here to listen. But we’re not here to take on their suffering.