“Don’t be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous.” ~Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan
We are capable of feeling many emotions at once. Just because you may be grieving, hurting, or suffering from trauma doesn’t mean you can’t also experience joy or other positive emotions at the same time. Your pain doesn’t need you to be “loyal” to it by suppressing those positive emotions. Let yourself feel all of them!
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“When we are brave enough to sit with our pain, it deepens our ability to sit with the pain of others. It shows us how to love them.” ~Valarie Kaur
When we are in pain, everything in our being urges us to escape it. It takes great courage to just sit with the pain and experience it. Not only is facing the pain directly the best way to get through our own pain, it also deepens our capacity to be able to sit with others who are in pain so we can better show our love in their difficult times.
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“There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal.” ~Henri Nouwen (from “The Inner Voice of Love”)
I naturally tend more toward one of these extremes than the other and will sometimes judiciously employ aspects of the other extreme to help me find a healthy middle ground. How do you help yourself stay away from the extremes and find your way into that healthy middle space of healing?
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“Gratefulness helps us return to ourselves, restoring our equilibrium and helping us to see beyond what’s broken to the beauty and wholeness of life.” ~Tim Roberts
When we are hurting, it’s easy to become so focused on what’s causing us pain that we see nothing else. Gratefulness helps widen our view to remind us that there is more to life than just the pain we are facing. Rediscovering the beauty and wholeness that still exists can help us navigate our pain with greater ease.
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“You can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.” ~Junot Díaz
When I’m hurting, my first impulse is always escape. I want to run away from the pain, the confusion, the fear, or the heartache.
It never works. No matter how far or how fast I run, I inevitably bring all of that anguish with me because I can’t escape what’s inside me.
The only way through it is to go inward and face those difficult emotions head on and work through them. Every single time.
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