tomatoes, Canon Digital Rebel
“Suffering is not holding you. You are holding suffering. When you
become good at the art of letting sufferings go, then you’ll come to
realize how unnecessary it was for you to drag those burdens around with
you. You’ll see that no one else other than you was responsible. The truth
is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”
– Osho
On this blog you’ll be learning with me how to use our voices, share our creative superpowers and live life in full color.
As an artist, photographer, life coach + mentor, I’m redefining what it means to be a SUPERHERO — ‘cause in my world, it’s got nothing to do with capes, spandex or sidekicks and everything to do with tenderness, intuition & baby steps of bravery.
Download the Mondo Beyondo dream generator!
![[Podcast] Manifest Anything You Want with Shantini Rajah](https://i0.wp.com/www.andreascher.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/WEBSITE_Graphics_for_Podcast_Instagram_Post_Square_3-20240516-g2j5dalikz.png?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
Shantini Rajah is a writing and manifesting mentor and energy practitioner. She loves helping conscious entrepreneurs find their true voice and manifest a life and business they love. Her brand new book is called Manifest Anything You Want: Six magical steps to...
![[Podcast] The Good Eater with Nina Guilbeault](https://i0.wp.com/www.andreascher.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/nina_school_of_wonder.png?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
In The Good Eater, Harvard-trained sociologist (and vegan) Nina Guilbeault, PhD vividly explores the movement's history and its present-day tensions by grappling with the most fundamental question of all: Is there a truly ethical way to eat? What emerges is a...
![[Podcast] The medicine of poetry with James Crews](https://i0.wp.com/www.andreascher.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/james_crews_school_of_wonder.png?resize=400%2C300&ssl=1)
James Crews is the editor of several bestselling anthologies, including The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, which has over 100,000 copies in print. He has been featured in The Washington Post, The...
30 days of ease, joy and cultivating wonder
I believe that when I’m creating from a place of ease and buoyancy I am actually in flow – in alignment with myself and the Universe.
Rock your camera-phone - and discover that beauty and joy are everywhere.
The very best camera is the one that’s with you! I’ll show you how to get on your own path of joy and delight while learning photography skills along the way.
What does your heart truly want in 2020?
What if you could name your dreams and desires for 2020 and create a plan to make them reality?
VIEW MORE COURSES
This will also get you access to my mailing list full of weekly-ish inspiration, updates and musings. I'm so glad you're here!
beautiful…
i love the imagery of my life as a festival! avram davis of chochmat ha lev says that our purpose in life is to feel joy and bring joy. and for some reason, the photograph of the apples in the bins brings me joy, so thank you for sharing it!
these ARE the truest words I’ve read in a long long time…
thank you SO much.
i needed this today. it has been a rough week. wow…this really spoke to me. i will call you soon. know you are on my heart always, my friend. thank you for this. xoxo love u.
This resonnated with me. And I thought of sending it to a friend who suffers with depression and anxiety but read it again and thought, “What? Now she reads this and has to feel crappy about feeling crappy, like it’s her fault and she could just feel better if she just let her suffering go.” Maybe I’m overthinking with this supposition but it’s another perspective on this quote.
The truth is that existence wants your life to become a festival.”
i love this andrea you beautiful girl!!
LOVE IT!!!!
I am so happy I stumbled onto your website! I will echo the others comments and say I really needed to hear this today. I lost my father three weeks ago and I know that I have been holding onto his passing and the pain it caused in me in a not-so healthy way. I mean, I know the grieving process is just that, but allowing suffering to take me over is just like… unnecessary… as Osho puts it.
So, thanks. And I look forward to exploring your whole site and oh, congrats on the impending little one! Woo hoo! A boy!
Thank you so much for this. I’m saving this quote and remembering it as I go through some transitions of my own to let joy rule in my life.
Lately I have been feeling that the easiest way of being happy is just deciding that you are so. Like telling your muscles to relax. You can’t relax them just by feeling, but when you tell them to and say the words in your head, they relax. I am happy. Could it be that easy?
(Also, I needed this quote today. Things haven’t been feeling very festival-like lately. Thank you.)
Andrea, first you freaked me out–I thought WOW what synchronicity for you to post this quote, the same quote i had read and copied and posted in front of my monitor at work on Wed… and then it occurred to me that maybe you get the same astrology newletter in email that I do, which is where I found the quote.
Isn’t it an amazing one??? I really have to mull over it as it really spoke to me.
I have learned this lesson over and over again…
I love the beautiful tomato festival you’ve captured here! And it is indeed a very pretty quote. Thanks for sharing it.
I’ve been thinking about suffering lately, mainly because there seems to be so much of it in the world and I’ve been experiencing much personal grief. I talked to my naturopath/midwife/supreme goddess friend about it. She shared something with me that has made a dramatic difference in my life. She is also a Buddhist and told me about a practice in Tibetan Buddhism that involves using our personal pain as a healing tool for others. I don’t remember what it’s called and I’m not always best at paraphrasing. But the gist of it is that we first acknowledge that the world is filled with suffering that we don’t see. Then when we are in the throes of grief or pain or anger or frustration or whatever is bringing us down, send an aspiration to the world that the suffering we feel is enough to ease the suffering of others. Then breathe it in deeply, all of its black yuckiness, and exhale just as deeply a white healing light. It’s amazing. I’ve found that when my grief catches me off guard and I remember this, I think “Oh yes, I know what to do with this now.” Strangely, then my pain seems like a blessing.
Thanks for all the healing words you send out to your community, Superhero Andrea!
Honestly, I’m not certain how I feel about this quote and I guess I’m the only one. Sometimes I feel like it’s OK to take a little time to let go of your own personal sufferings, even if you are bitter in the process. A scab doesn’t just go away. This quote almost makes me feel like I’m taking too long to get over things that have happened to me. And to add to that, it makes me feel like it’s my fault for them happening. I don’t know; maybe I’m just reading it wrong.
On a more positive note, love the picture! 🙂
Oiw.. Andrea… I *LOVE* this!
Life is absolutely a festival.
We are not determined by our experiences, but how we deal with them.
That is what I believe.
Bx
when it comes down to it, this is true:)
Hi Andrea and readers,
Essentially I agree with this quote — I think that we do/can become attached to our suffering, prolonging it; sometimes it’s just a matter of “changing our mind” about something that causes the shift out of the suffering….. sometimes not though. I think it depends on the nature or cause of the suffering.
I have to question, “existence wants your life to become a festival” especially when I see that the author is Osho. I was involved in an Osho/Rajneesh community about 15 years ago and watched many people trying to live their lives by this philosophy. In truth (from what I could see) their lives were anything but a festival (more like a strange carnival). I guess it’s all about balance — too much of anything can cause disharmony. As far as I’m concerned, Osho CAUSED a fair bit of suffering especially for some of the children of his followers who lost their parents to the “festival”
Sorry if this is a bit negative — just needed to say it.
C
PS — love the photo!
I agree that life is supposed to be a festival. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it should be always fun, easy and without suffering. Suffering is a part of life. Sometimes you really can’t let it go that easily, but you can learn to deal with it. Besides, a festival is a mixture of everything. Life should be just that. A little bit of suffering, lots of laughs, lots of fun, and everything esle you can think of.
Thank you for the quote 🙂
right on.
on many occasion your joural has inspired me.
delurking to say thanks for being a beacon.
I love this quote! I was just reading a post on another blog about how the writer was feeling happy for no real reason and she was wondering what was wrong with her!
I’ve had the same thing happen. I think there is sometimes guilt over feeling happy, especially when it is just out of the blue happiness. Holding on to suffering certainly alleviates the happiness guilt. The only problem is we end up miserable!
I like the idea that life should be a festival. We need to appreciate and savor every bit of happiness that comes our way. And if we can help it, try not to wallow in the sorrow, at least for too long.
Hi Andrea,
I’m a friend of Christine Miller’s in LA – I’ve been reading your blog for several months now. In fact to be honest – I think your blog may have been the start to my path to meet my, now, not so new, wonderful friend Christine 🙂
This is a beautiful quote. And thank you for the post as a reminder to me! My life is often a festival and in the rush of finding my way to the next festival, I miss what is happening now. I’m soooo ready to let the burdens go… and happy to report I am well on my way!
Much love to you and hope to meet you one of these days.
Marisa
What thoroughly beautiful image and stunning words.
“Let it go, just let it go.”
Thankyou
Lovely, and so timely!
Lovely, and so timely!
that last line made me tear up…
i had a moment like this 2 years ago. i was recovering from a break up and wanting someone to hold my pain for me b/c i was so tired of holding it. then, while i was driving, i just thought why am i holding onto the pain? why would someone else hold it when i don’t want it? what would happen if i just let it go? and in that moment i felt it go.
i still think of this moment when i’m “suffering” and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. but i think when you are ready to let it go, you will be able to. sometimes pain is necessary to gain a new strength but we all have the power to sit with the pain and come through the other side. even if we don’t know it when we’re in it.
thanks for sharing.