My heart has been heavy this week.
I’ve spent some time considering why. Honestly, I’m not sure, exactly. And I’m learning to be okay with not knowing. I don’t need to understand. I don’t need to try to solve my sadness, or to fix it.
In fact, my tendency to want to do this–to get at the root of my own suffering–pulls me away from it. Pulls me away into my mind, where I ruminate on the past and theorize about the future. And while this maybe sounds like a good thing, it’s actually not helpful. We need to be present to our suffering, to feel it and fully experience it. This presence invites Wholeness, Holiness.
The thing with being present to suffering is that first, I have to notice it and allow myself to experience it. These days, in all our busyness, this isn’t an easy thing. We need time and space. A strange commentary of the state of affairs: we need time and space to be with ourselves and to feel what we feel. And yet, so true.
Just yesterday, in two separate conversations, when friends spoke of things happening in their lives, they were surprised by their tears, by the emotions that arose as they touched on what was bubbling underneath, all along.
Today, Good Friday, the day Christ suffered on the cross, I am thankful for this Christian tradition. Today, this day invites me to remember the sacred role suffering plays in transformation. Today reminds me of the power of being with suffering.
What if, when we touch on something tender, we simply stay with that tenderness? Instead of turning away and running (to a glass of wine, Netflix, another topic of conversation, a theory as to why, or a solution that will fix it), we tend to the tenderness?
Tending is not fixing. Tending is holding, caring.
And that is all. And that is enough.
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