4. The Causes of Suffering

What if your suffering isn’t coming from what’s happening to you… but from how you’re relating to it?

In this episode, Chris introduces a powerful workshop-style practice to help you see the root of your suffering in real time. Through a simple visual exercise, you’ll begin to understand how both grasping and resisting quietly shape your experience.

In this episode of the Spiritual Sobriety Podcast, Chris explores:

• The two primary causes of suffering: attachment and aversion
 • How “grabbing” and “pushing away” create internal tension
 • The connection between Buddhist teachings and the 12 Steps
 • How mindfulness helps interrupt automatic reactions

This episode is for you if:

• You feel stuck in patterns you can’t seem to break
 • You notice yourself clinging to or avoiding certain people, places, or behaviors
 • You’re ready to understand your suffering at a deeper level

The Invitation

Suffering doesn’t just come from what we experience.
 It often comes from how tightly we hold on or how strongly we push away.

As Chris shares, “attachments and aversions are the two key sources of suffering.”

In this episode, you’re invited to slow down and notice where this is happening in your own life, not with judgment, but with awareness.

Featured Practice

Take 5 minutes today to try this:

1. Draw a simple half-circle with two arrows: one labeled “attachments” and one labeled “aversions.”
2. Write down examples of where you are grabbing onto something or pushing something away.
3. Pause and ask yourself: “What am I wanting right now? What am I not wanting?”

Begin to notice the moment before the reaction.

Journal Prompt

“Where in my life am I creating suffering by holding on or pushing away?”

Write freely. Let patterns reveal themselves.

Key Reflection

“The grabbing and the pushing away are what generate our suffering.”

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone walking their own sobriety path.

Chris McDuffie is a licensed psychotherapist, mindfulness teacher and sober coach in private practice. He is the CEO and lead therapist for Chris McDuffie Counseling, a leading concierge practice caring for mental and behavioral health needs. He lives in Carlsbad, California, and holds a  Master of Social Work from Fordham University. He teaches recovery from addiction and co-occurring disorders through the spiritual practices of Buddhism and the 12 Steps.

If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone walking their own sobriety path.

Follow Chris for reflections and meditations:
Website: https://www.chrismcduffietherapy.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chris__mcduffie/

Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/buddhanature

You don’t have to walk this path alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome. This is Spiritual Sobriety, a podcast about recovery, awakening, and learning how to live with a little more honesty, compassion, and freedom. I'm Chris McDuffie. I work as a licensed psychotherapist, meditation teacher, sober coach, and someone who has spent the past 15 years walking the path of recovery and spiritual practices. In this podcast, we explore the intersection of Buddhist wisdom and the 12 steps, not as theories, but as lived practices. Practices that help us meet suffering directly, loosen the grip of old patterns, and remember who we are beneath the stories we carry. Each episode is an invitation to slow down, reflect, and bring these teachings into your real life. Not to just fix yourself, but to relate to yourself with more clarity and kindness. Wherever you are listening from, I'm glad you're here. Let's begin. Hi everyone, it's Chris McDuffie from Spiritual Sobriety. Today we're going to try something a little different. Today we're going to do a workshop. You're going to need some supplies, so I'll read the instructions and feel free to pause at any time to help restart so that you can follow along. The first thing you're going to need is a piece of paper held sideways and a pen. Today's discussion is Buddhist's approach to managing suffering and how it correlates to the 12 steps. We're going to draw a half of a top of a circle in the middle part of your page, allowing about four inches from the bottom of the ends of the half circle, so that the half circle sits in the middle of the page. At the end of each half circle line, would you draw an arrow? And on the left side, would you please write below the arrow attachments grabbing? And on the bottom of the right arrow would you write the words aversion and anger. According to Buddhism, attachments and aversions are the two key sources of suffering. Before we get into the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path in greater detail, I'd like to start with this visual aid and hopefully we can do this together with paper and pencil. Now you have this half-shaped circle with the words attachments and aversions. I'd like you to give some personal examples for yourself of attachments and grabbing onto things that help cause you suffering. So, for example, if I grab onto an electric wire, I'm going to get shocked. Or if I grab onto a hot stove with my hand, I'm going to get injured and get burnt at the same time. Or if I grab onto a hot stove with my hand, I'm going to get injured. I'd like you to think about examples of unhealthy aversions and anger. And this example might be if the house is on fire, I would be suffering if I chose to angrily avoid calling 911 for help. Pause right here for a moment and give yourself a chance to write freely, and pause to give yourself some time to reflect.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

We'll be back in a few minutes. Okay, let me give you a little more help.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Now we know that the twelve steps, people, places, and things are the key general areas where we suffer. So in recovery, we might be suffering from our attachments to our ex-spouse or lover. We might be attached to places where we were harmed and felt resentful towards. And we might be attached to things in our case like chemical substances or process addictions, along with resentments. You can imagine that this whole list are things that humans for thousands of years have been grabbing onto, which creates their own suffering. I'd like to give you a moment now again to refocus your energies on private reflection, on examples of people, places, and things, perhaps chemical addictions or process addictions, or resentments that you noticed in the past you attached to or grabbed onto, or currently are grabbing onto, and it is that grabbing that creates your suffering. At the same time, I'd like you to think about people, places, and things that you have been avoiding or angry with, that is to your own detriment, that the pushing away of these resources are creating more suffering for you. Okay, let's get back to those arrows. Before we have the act of grabbing or before the behavior of pushing away, we want to begin to notice through practices the original wanting and not wanting. Right before that action, there's going to be a thought and a feeling of wanting and a thought and a feeling of not wanting. I'd like you to consider how mindfulness and meditation and step 11's contemplative prayer could be used to practice identifying in real time whether you have the impetus, whether you have that automatic thought, whether you've been triggered with a thought that you want something or not want something. And can you begin to practice seeing this in real time? So here we have the introduction to mindfulness meditation and practices that develop your awareness of our automatic responses to wanting and not wanting. The trick in cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance commitment therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapies, and in Buddhism, is to see that I'm about to mindlessly grab something and then choose not to grab onto that thing. And to begin to see that I was about to push away something that I could have been better served by walking towards. In Buddhism, we actually bow towards those things. The example I like to use is if I'm drowning and a lifeguard is saying, Let me help you, let me help you, and I start yelling at him or her and say, Leave me alone. Can't you see that I'm drowning? Why are you bothering me? We want to begin to see how the attachments and the aversions generate our own sufferings in order to not attach and not avoid. From a chemical dependency situation, one can imagine that every time somebody grabs onto that drink or drug or that act of a process addiction, they are creating more suffering for themselves and others. Now imagine the same individual active in their addiction, pushing away 12 steps, pushing away therapists, pushing away sober livings and treatment centers, and you can see that they're now suffering at the middle of both sides of the proverbial rock and a hard place. I want to pause here for a moment. If what you're exploring in this episode feels familiar, or if you're noticing parts of yourself that want more support, you don't have to walk this path alone. I work one-on-one with people who are navigating recovery, spiritual questioning, and longstanding patterns of suffering. Our work together is slow, honest, and grounded in both therapeutic support and contemplative practices. If you're ready to go deeper and want personalized guidance, you can learn more about working with me at Chris McDuffie Therapy.com. That's C H R I S M C D U F F I E Therapy.com. Wherever you are on the path, I'm glad you're here. Let's continue. Now for our next task, I'd like you to draw a number line from the bottom of your left arrow going forwards, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, stopping about three-quarters of the way up the line at the same time. I'd like you to draw one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, stopping equally at about three-quarters up the number line on the right side. When I teach this model to clients, I show them now that if we overlay the 12 steps onto the same arrow spectrum that Buddhism works with, we begin to see that if we can reflect on step one through nine, we see with our sponsees how they and how we ourselves were suffering from those attachments, and equally suffering through step one through nine with those aversions. Again, the point of step one through nine is to uncover, discover, and identify what needs to be discarded and embraced, i.e., that one is God, may you find him now. In this case, the attachments and the aversions. I've developed this model as a visual aid to show literally how we can overlay the twelve steps, principles, and practices on top of Buddha's principles. You should still have space at the top of your circle. And here's where I would like you to write the following steps 10, 11, and 12. And I'd like you to also write above or below the words the eightfold path. Now we have a visual aid of the sweet spot of balance and equanimity. And in Buddhism, Buddha called the sweet spot the balance or the middle way or the middle path. This is the eightfold path teaching. I draw the spectrum for you then to show you how as a seesaw or a fulcrum or the middle path could be used as a state of homeostasis or balance. In that spot, we could overlay the eightfold path and the twelve-step principles, which we'll do later. And when we're reviewing steps 10, 11, and 12, as we work with sponsees and clients using the 12-step model, we suggest that we want to live in that balanced place of steps 10, 11, 12 throughout each day. We also want to remind ourselves when we practice these principles before personalities. We also want to practice progress, not perfection. The goal here is not to stay in the center of the fulcrum. That's impossible. The goal here is to develop mindfulness and practices of contemplative prayer in order to begin to notice when we are tilting towards the wanting or tilting towards not wanting, towards things that might be attachments or aversions, and begin to develop the cessation of the grabbing and the cessation of the pushing away. That in a nutshell is Buddhists' attempt to suggest how to literally end our own suffering by stopping the grabbing and stopping the pushing away. We're going to get into details of the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths in the next two upcoming podcasts. I wanted to begin with this schema to orientate you to two things again: the Buddhist approach to the cause of suffering and the 12-step approach to explain the causes of suffering as a visual aid. I hope that that helped you, and I look forward to hearing your responses and thoughts on your examples of attachments and aversions. Thank you and have a wonderful day. Take care. As we close, I invite you to take a moment and notice what stayed with you from this episode. You don't need to understand everything or do anything perfectly. This path unfolds one honest moment at a time. If what we explored today resonated and you feel called to go deeper, I offer one-on-one therapy and coaching for people who want personal support integrating these teachings into their lives. You can connect with me directly and learn more at Chris McDuffie Therapy.com. That C H R I S M C D U F F I E Therapy dot com. And if this podcast has been helpful, you're welcome to share it with someone who might need it, or take a moment to follow and review the show. Thank you for practicing with me. The path continues.