Present with Suffering: Being with the Things that Hurt

What is the place of discontent and unhappiness in human experience and how best can we be with it?

There is something about everything that makes it not quite satisfactory. Even things we really love are spoilt by not being quite enough or by going on too long. People entering psychotherapy want to feel better – more authoritative, less anxious or depressed, more whole – and although it can help, an enormous amount of difficult and painful emotions continue to arise. Even after years and years of therapy many of us feel that there is no 'happy ever after'. Bearing this reality in mind and drawing upon both psychotherapeutic and Buddhist sources, Present with Suffering, explores bereavement and our pervasive experience of emptiness. It shows how through being mindfully present, kind and accepting, we may enfold what hurts us in a more spacious and meaningful way.