The medicine of yes.
As we're learning to walk on our healing journey,
And as we're learning to be with what is happening in our inner world,
It's not long before we realize that we're being called to change.
Our automatic response is to find ourselves clinging tightly to the stories and identities we've outgrown.
We find ourselves afraid and resistant to change,
Wanting to choose the familiar pain of stagnation over the unknown pain of growth.
I want to let you know that this discomfort and disease is a sign of our initiation into a new form of engagement with pain.
If we are to embrace Kahlil Gibran's words that,
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding,
Then we can become more trusting that our pain is preparing us to learn something new.
If we are to learn from Rumi's line that the cure for the pain is in the pain,
Then we can open ourselves to seeing the pain as medicine.
Yes our pain is the end result of something gone wrong,
But it is also the very medicine that begins the healing process that will free us from the ways in which we were hurt.
Part of me does not want to take the medicine.
I know it will be bitter and terrible.
The part of me that has protected myself from feeling pain and helped me survive shows up to say,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No.
I do not want to feel the angry pain that eats away at my insides.
I do not want the raw and exposed pain of heartbreak to flood me with grief and loss.
I do not want to feel the silent pain of shame that assaults my worthiness and whips me for being me.
It can be difficult to let go of control and believe in something we don't yet understand.
But most difficult is feeling numb.
When the pain simmers below the surface,
We feel paralyzed.
When we open ourselves to allow the pain,
We discover that the ferocious monsters we would wish away are the same ones that hold the keys to our healing.
And when we summon the love and the courage to face what we have been afraid to face,
Those keys are handed to us.
The ferocity of our pain calls forth from us a fierceness of presence that can match it.
To be fiercely present with something that hurts is to open yourself to feel the full spectrum of sensation.
To say yes to it again and again.
To affirm its fierce presence with your own.
To meet your pain with the most unconditional love you are capable of mustering.
Yes,
I hear you.
Yes,
I feel you.
Yes,
I see you.
Yes,
It's okay.
It's okay.
Yes,
You are welcome here.
I'm listening.
Go on.
Tell me more.
I'm here.
Tell me everything.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
I feel it.
It hurts.
It hurts.
Yes.
Yes.
I have found that each time I stop myself from wishing my pain away and turn my face toward it in acceptance and take my medicine,
My soul feels more strengthened,
More healed,
More whole.
Be fierce.
Open your heart to the pain and allow it to move through you like a wildfire on the back of a strong wind.
Give your pain freedom to move and to move through you.
Your pain has never wanted this bondage and neither have you.
Open your hands and allow your pain to loosen itself from the tightness of your grip.
Let it come up.
Let it find a way out.
And as the pain runs through your body,
Let the tears run too.
Let the medicine cleanse you and purify you.
Say yes to this.
Bring your pain,
Your fiercest presence.
When you face your pain with the full force of love,
Your own face changes.
The world looks different from here and so do you.
For the greater beauty in the world you now see is a reflection of the unseen beauty in you now free.
