Day Twenty-Three

A good friend of mine is going through a hard time right now and she just texted me this morning, "Suzy, I cried myself to sleep last night and now I look like shit. I have to go to work when I should just stay in bed."

I told her to just let herself look how she feels. That this is life, and this is humanity, and that it's okay to feel how we feel.

There's a well-known drug-addiction counselor in the lower mainland here and he is known for his words of wisdom, one of which is this: that it's important to embrace pain because it teaches us something. That pain is in fact more important than peace and joy. It facilitates movement, and when we move, time passes and heals.

A couple of years ago I read Sue Monk Kidd's book, "The Dance of the Dissident Daughter" in which she describes pain and how we might best deal with it:

"He suggests we approach the pain the way a mother tenderly picks up a crying baby...once we can get the baby quiet, we can begin to look deeply at the feeling. We begin to understand the attitudes, patterns and beliefs that cause it. We start to see what keeps us stuck in our wounds and what we can do to transform them."

Pain feels awful, emotional pain far more so than physical. If we detach ourselves from it and pretend it's not really there, then it will fester and grow and contaminate our lives and loves. But if we pay attention to the pain, let it speak to us and teach us, as painful as it is, we will be able to walk away from that toxic sludge with that much less green goop stuck to our hearts.