It's been said many times before: There is much suffering in life.

Many people are unhappy.
Relationships are not working.
There is too much stress in life.
Families are in crisis.
People feel misunderstood, unfairly treated and powerless.
There doesn't seem to be a point to anything. Life is a grind and there's no light at the end of the tunnel.

We feel that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to change things, no matter what we do.

Many people deal with all of this by giving up on finding real happiness and just create comfortable and safe refuges, where they don't have to feel the pain, or where the pain at least seems less than it would otherwise be.

But even this way of living has costs that can become unbearable.

We do have a choice:

The problem we have in life, is that we use great subtly and skill to avoid getting to the source of our pain and suffering, even while sometimes pretending that we are open to change.

Unfortunately, this doesn't actually lessen the pain and suffering we experience, and our lives are badly degraded from the various ways we deal with it.

So the choice we have, is to shut out the pain, suffering and confusion, to put our real selves aside and pretend that we are OK, or we can choose to get to the source of what makes our lives happen the way they do and deal with it.

We can choose to become real.

Next

Actual/Real/Truth: How life, the world, the universe actually is, whatever that may be.

Ideas: Mental creations about life and the world, which we use to build the beliefs that we live our lives by.

Beliefs: Sets of ideas that we consider "true" about our lives and the world, from which we create the content and experience of our lives.

Consciousness: Clear awareness, free of all ideas of "reality". Completely aware of the consequences of ideas and actions.

Identity/Self image: The person, the "me", that exists in the world with name, bank account, job, partner and life history.

Suffering: Life experiences created by a mismatch between ideas of what actually is and what actually is.

Real "Self": The immense and complete being we are, underneath all the filters, ideas and self limitations that give people their sense of identity and meaning.