6. Balancing Suffering with Gratitude

Episode 6: Balancing Suffering with Gratitude 

Episode Summary 

In this episode of Spiritual Sobriety, Chris McDuffie explores the relationship between suffering and gratitude as complementary forces in recovery. Drawing on the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths and the teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh, Chris guides listeners through a live contemplative exercise and offers a fresh perspective: that learning to sit with suffering, rather than escape it.

What You’ll Learn: 

• Why suffering and gratitude are not opposites—but partners in healing 

• How our attachments and aversions generate anxiety, guilt, and remorse 

• The Buddhist teaching of No Mud, No Lotus as a guide through pain 

• Why turning inward—not outward—is the path to lasting relief 

• A practical gratitude exercise to use daily as a relapse prevention tool 

In This Episode: 

• Chris introduces the mantra: “It’s okay to look at the past, just don’t stare” • The First Noble Truth and how we generate our own suffering through attachment • Cicero’s teaching that gratitude is the father of all virtues 

• Thich Nhat Hanh’s No Mud, No Lotus and the secret to transforming suffering • The dog tied to a post: a Buddhist metaphor for how addiction traps us in circles • A live two-column T-chart gratitude exercise with reflection on the feelings it surfaces 

Featured Practice: 

Take 5–10 minutes today to practice this contemplative gratitude exercise. You will need a pen and paper. 

1. Find a quiet space and take three slow, grounding breaths. 

2. Draw a T-chart on your paper. Label the left column: I am grateful for having. Label the right column: I am grateful for not having. 

3. Free-write in both columns. There are no wrong answers—this is your personal reflection. 4. Notice what feelings arise and write them down. If nothing surfaces, that is okay. 5. Ask yourself: “What does this list reveal about what I truly value?”

Journal Prompt: 

“What would it look like if I trusted the process of healing instead of reaching outward to escape my pain?” 

Key Quote: 

“Bringing gratitude to my suffering is the most loving, kind way to respond. Remember—no mud, no lotus.”

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_00 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, and welcome to Spiritual Sobriety. I'm your host, Chris McDuffie. My mission for Spiritual Sobriety Podcast Channel is to share and celebrate the critical importance that spirituality plays in living a healthy, happy, and joyful, sober life. We will chiefly study how Buddhism, the 12-step programs, are powerful spiritual pathways to help anyone grow out of suffering and into joy. To be clear, my argument is that any non-chemical spiritual pathway, be it religious, secular, or otherwise, practice with the objective to celebrate love, equanimity, and service to others is critical to living a spiritual sober life. Today I will discuss how to balance our suffering with the gift of gratitude. My suggestions are meant for anyone who seeks to relieve their suffering. If you are not interested in relieving your suffering or feel stuck in anxiety, depression, or trauma, I invite you to consider today's suggestions as a potential guide for future exploration. There is nothing wrong or bad about any thoughts or feelings. You need not feel pressured to end your suffering. Cicero said that gratitude is the father of all virtues. Without it, one may not generate love, compassion, joy, or any of the rich feelings generated by spiritual union. How we choose to respond to our suffering will determine if we bring about the cessation of our suffering. Let's respond to our suffering whether in the present moment or when we look back at our suffering in our step one through nine work or our work with a clinical therapist in a loving, kind, and non-judging way. When we study and practice the Four Noble Truths, it is essential to not get lost in our suffering. The A mantra, it's okay not to look at the past, just don't stare, helps me when I'm generating my own suffering. My attachment to my guilt, shame, and remorse is what generates my anxiety and depression, and my panic attacks. Learning how to balance suffering with gratitude is a powerful and effective coping skill to help end our suffering. As we say in AA, we are not a glum lot. Vietnamese Buddhist monk and spiritual leader Tiknad Han's wonderful book and slogan, No Mud, No Lotus, helps us correctly understand how to survive, learn, and grow from our suffering. He writes, The secret to happiness is to acknowledge and transform the suffering, not to run away from it. In No Mud, No Lotus, which I highly recommend you read, Tiknot Han offers practice and inspiration to help us transform suffering and find true joy. Included in my lessons will be practices and resources to use to end our suffering. Buddha's suggestions of how to do this is presented to us in the fourth of the Four Noble Truths. We will discuss the Four Noble Truths later after spending several podcasts exploring the causes of suffering. As with any new journey, the suffering individual will want the help of well-intentioned specialists, doctors, therapists, sponsors, gurus, religious and lay leaders, and sober mentors to help serve as critical guides. A spiritual path is not a lonely one. Let's study gratitude by way of a contemplative exercise. You will need a pen and paper. The term contemplative or contemplate means to shine light on. Let's begin by creating a two-column T chart on your paper. Please enter the following heading on your left column, I am grateful for having. And on your right column, the title, I am grateful for not having. To be clear, you have two headings now that read, I am grateful for having and I am grateful for not having. Please take a moment and pause to contemplate on each heading and freely write as many examples as you can based on your own perspective. At this very moment there are no wrong answers. This is your own personal gratitude reflection. You may want to pause the podcast again and restart for five minutes of writing. Welcome back. I'd like you to now identify the feelings that arose while generating your own gratitude list. Please take a minute to write these feelings somewhere on your paper. If no feelings or emotions arose, or if you're having difficulty identifying your feelings, that's okay. No need to force any emotion. Be sure to take immediate self-care if any uncomfortable feelings arise. You may have noticed perhaps a range of emotions or mixed emotions. In Japanese Zen Buddhism, our responses can be defined as bittersweet, meaning our emotional responses to any given situation can range from bitter to bittersweet to sweet. We discussed during our previous podcasts that we create our own suffering when we think we can egoically attach to drugs or alcohol or any process addiction in order to escape from or prevent our suffering. Today's gratitude list exercise helps you expand your perspective twofold by calling to mind all that you are grateful for and even what you're grateful for not having. And you can use this exercise to generate feelings and emotions associated with everyone and everything on your list. This gratitude list exercise helps exemplify how we generate our feelings from a recovery and spiritual perspective. I use this exercise to show how love, compassion, and gratitude spring up from us as our core values. If these feelings arose within you and you enjoy these feelings, you may want to commend yourself now for using a zero calorie, 100% organic, free resource, not sugar, not alcohol, not sex, not gambling or drugs. Notice, however, that the suffering individual creates suffering by attempting to grab hold of something external or extrinsic to satisfy one's internal pain and suffering. Remember that addiction to our attachments and our versions is a learned behavior. In the West, our parents, our community, our culture, and our experiences have typically taught us to turn outward rather than turn inward. We have been taught that the cause of suffering and the solution to suffering is outside of us. Do you remember the Buddhist metaphor of the dog running in circles tied to a post? We are running in circles trying to end our suffering but get nowhere. Buddhism and the twelve step programs are two spiritual pathways that help us look inward to identify the source of our suffering and inward to identify the healthy solutions. In this exercise, we reveal our core values. The Gratitude List is a wonderful contemplative exercise to practice each morning and throughout each day, as it helps to create and manifest joy and happiness at the same time. This practice serves as a powerful relapse prevention tool and a new coping skill. We see very clearly that if we choose to relapse, the people, places, and things that we value and give us joy will evaporate very quickly. So as we look at the Buddha's first noble truths and reflect on the lessons from the previous few podcasts, the invitation is to practice the awareness of suffering or joy and to be mindfully aware of the urge to prolong the joy or push away and think we can avoid the suffering altogether. I find bringing gratitude to my suffering is the most loving, kind way to respond. The purpose of all spiritual pathways is to learn how to grow out of our suffering. Remember, no mud, no lotus. I hope that you found today's discussion helpful on your spiritual pathway towards joy and happiness. Please be sure to follow Spiritual Sobriety Podcast and share your interest with your friends. I look forward to reading your responses to today's discussion. Thank you for being a part of Spiritual Sobriety. 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's C H R I S M C D U F F I E Therapy.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.