I wrote the other day how when you've been called to teach, it’s not because you’re an expert, but instead it’s the vehicle for your own learning. I had a heart to heart with one of my gladiators and was telling her how she needed to be present in her pain, that if we’re not, we enact unhealthy coping behaviors that prolong the healing process and cause us to have to stay in the pain much longer. Well as God would have it, that conversation was really for myself because the next day or so afterwards, I was going through it! I was fully in the pity pulpit and feeling the full weight of being abandoned, like I was undeserving of good, and sad that the person who I trusted the most didn't seem to value me or my needs. Some of y’all may have gotten my texts with me all in my feelings.
Being Present
What I do know is that as uncomfortable and heart-wrenching as it is, it is imperative that you are honest with your true feelings and face the pain. You can’t ignore it, deny your feelings through affirmations, self-medicate, or replace people in your life to avoid the feelings that come up. No, you have to realize that pain is simply another emotion that can provide insight and instruction, not only of where you are now, but how that pain came to be. When I was studying and practicing Vipassana (insight meditation), we learned to look objectively at any emotion as it comes up. For example, when you are sitting on the mat and feel a cramp in your leg, you don’t try to force the feeling away. Instead you go into it, you notice the direction it’s coming from, you notice the intensity, you notice the pain pattern—is it coming in waves, is it radiating from the center, and so forth. The interesting thing is that the longer you stay truly in the feeling, observing it without judging or assigning value to it, not trying to interpret its meaning, it actually dissipates. It simply melts away as if it were nothing more than a flake of snow.
I apply this to my own journey with healing and see the chain reaction.
- If we can face our pain, we can see it for what it is without thinking it means something catastrophic about our own Being.
- If we stop fearing it, then we will stop putting ourselves in situations that mask it.
- If we stop putting ourselves in masking situations, we can be more authentic.
- If we are more authentic, we are fully acknowledging God’s unique creation and divine gift of you that has a singular purpose on this earth that NO ONE can fulfill. After all, how many millions of sperm lost to result in the ONE that joined that ONE good egg to make you? Yeah, we are not accidents.
- When we realize how unique and divine we are, we develop faith. We believe that we are on purpose and can step out in full confidence of our unique, authentic self.
Like Lauryn Hill said, “it can all be so simple, but you'd rather make it hard.” Today, I’m going to be easy on myself and simply be in it. How about you?