Suffering is universal, but how we handle it is not. Thomas Fiffer opens the way to healing through a window in his heart.
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We all suffer.
Pain, like pleasure, is an inevitable aspect of life, and the more we live, love, and give, the more it hurts when we lose something or someone we value and hold dear.
The alternative, diminishing life to the point where there is nothing to lose, sacrificing happiness and joy for a false sense of security, brings loss of a different magnitude, casts open an unbearable emptiness, a hole in which there is only falling and no bottom, no solid thud from which to gain one’s footing, only the whoosh of the vacuum as each day slips away.
When we hide our pain, mask and cover it, numb it, and pretend it doesn’t exist, we draw closed a curtain that not only shuts out the light that would brighten our days but also shuts in the light we are called on to shine. We become sealed beings, utterly lonely and self-contained, lifeless islands with jagged, rocky shores and large, bold “No Trespassing” signs.
The more we live, love, and give, the more it hurts when we lose something or someone we value and hold dear.
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In this solitary state, we crave visitors, but only if they are willing to share our misery, to live with us on the island, admit defeat, concede there is nothing worth living for and no escape. Who would want to be with us in that place? Only love twisted into complete self-sacrifice could keep someone there.
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When we share our pain (including the mistakes that may have caused it), honestly, vulnerably, and wholeheartedly, when we accept and embrace our flaws and acknowledge that just like everyone else, we need help, a hand to hold, the touch of healing, when we drop the pretense of superiority and invulnerability, and when we bring forth from our deepest recesses the rough diamond of the self, imperfectly cut and incompletely polished, we throw that curtain open, creating an entry point for light and love, a big picture window, with a sign that says, “Blessings Welcome Here.”
And in the sharing, we shine outward, helping others, bringing comfort, building shelter, providing sustenance, and creating peace. Commiserating is vastly different from forcing someone to live in your own hell, from using their pain to sate the demands of yours.
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When we see another’s pain, we respond with sympathy, usually our own words.
When we feel another’s pain, we fill with empathy and begin to listen.
When we resolve to soothe another’s pain, we act with compassion, offering the balm of love.
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We must learn to accept, then love ourselves for there to be any hope of given love healing our wounds.
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Love is a powerful elixir, a magical potion, with the most remarkable healing properties. But there is one type of pain that is immune to love from another, no matter how freely and abundantly given, no matter how intensely focused, no matter how strong the flow. And that is pain that is self-inflicted. Hatred of the self, and the destructive acts it engenders, cannot be loved away. We must learn to accept, then love ourselves for there to be any hope of given love healing our wounds.
For there to be any hope, we must open the window, the window to our pain, and let the light, and the source of the light, in.
This post appeared previously on the Tom Aplomb blog.
Photo—glasseyes view/Flickr