Sunday, December 28, 2014

Cracked Grace: Sitting with, Experiencing the Pain

Cracked Grace
What to Do with the Pain

“Ouch!” It hurt, but not in a physical sense, unless one counts the metaphorical heart as physical. It was a direct snub, so it wasn’t a big thing, just one of the hundreds of things we face because we are human. It feels like I’m home watching The Love Boat while everyone else is at the dance. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, but it does.
Revenge, snide remarks, and disassociation all crowd my head as I consider the pain once, twice, a third time. “Forget it, and move on,” I tell myself. “Take _________ off the list.”
I stopped short in my mental dialogue when I realized I was doing everything to avoid what was most real for me: I’m hurt.
I know that to “move on,” I have to sit with the hurt and experience it, rather than react, rather than respond. In my grand scheme of what I call my life, how I react—or don’t—and how I respond—or don’t—matter to me as a person and reflect how I yearn to conduct my life. I want to be of use to myself, to others, to those I know and love, and those I have yet to meet on my journey. So, first, foremost, I will feel, then I will move forward, and then I will move beyond, absent the pain, but secure in the knowledge that I did not create more.
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Rather than react, respond, or seek revenge, what can you sit with today? What can you resolve? How can you continue to maintain and create peace?







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