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Present with Suffering: Being with the Things that Hurt

Author(s) : Nigel Wellings, Author(s) : Elizabeth Wilde McCormick

Reviews and Endorsements

At a time when we face so much personal, collective and planetary loss and suffering, this book comes as a timely and welcome support, a reminder of how by staying present with our grief and pain we might find ways through to healing … Present with Suffering is truly a gift for our troubled times.
Linda Hartley, author of Somatic Psychology: Body, Mind and Meaning

An absorbing exploration reconciling the human experience of suffering with the spiritual insights of meditative practice. Seen through the lenses of Buddhism and psychotherapy, the authors explain that within the bleakness of loss arises the possibility that pain and grief can be transformed into something new, more bearable and ultimately liberating.
Dr Sarah Eagger, MB,BS, FRCPsych, Chair of the Janki foundation for Spirituality in Healthcare and former Consultant Psychiatrist at Imperial College London

A thought-provoking meditation for everyone of being in the world, living in impermanence, emptiness and wholeness, and in harmony, with the help of Buddhist teachings. An invite for each of us to look at the essentials of what it means to be human. Present with Suffering teaches us to sit back in ‘our observing awareness,’ suggests how to ‘fill the gap of emptiness,’ and most of all, asks us to keep in mind the ‘not necessarily so’.
Marie-Anne Bernardy-Arbuz, clinical psychologist and CAT psychotherapist, Paris

Wellings and Wilde McCormick provide contrasting yet complementary voices on this important topic. The seeming natural impulse can be to turn away from suffering, that it’s all too much. Within these pages we are invited to not just turn towards and be with suffering in all its guises, but also to lean on ancient Buddhist practices in so doing. These practices allow for an intimate communion with the body-felt sense of pain beyond story, and ultimately, the dissolution of this pain in the basic goodness at the core.
Dr Andy Harkin, medical doctor and psychotherapist

This important book offers a heartfelt exploration into human suffering. By drawing on their personal experience of living and working with suffering, the authors offer a critical orientation of wisdom and hope for those navigating through the painful turbulences of loss, grief and trauma.
Margaret Landale, MSc, psychotherapist, supervisor and speaker

The question the authors pose is: How can we be with the things that hurt? Their answer is: through awareness, acceptance, kindness and compassion – the components of wisdom. By exploring bereavement through embodiment and narrative (McCormick), and offering an explanation of emptiness that is unusually faithful to both Buddhist and therapeutic understandings (Wellings), together they have produced a short book resonant with awareness, kindness, compassion and wisdom.
Gay Watson, Ph.D., author of A Philosophy of Emptiness and Attention Beyond Mindfulness

The meditations spoke to me, the authors’ personal experiences moved me, and I was left in no doubt of the value of ‘finding a safe way to access a helpful reflective pause’.
Sussex Counselling and Psychotherapy News