Note: This month I am sharing articles written by people who impacted me during the year 2011 and from whom I’ve learned a lot. Hope you enjoy the selection. Today’s article is by Ursula Jorch
Often, she is kind, loving and wildly enthusiastic in support of those she loves.
She also has a dark side. When she is in her pain, she cannot see past it. Everything becomes negative and interpreted as such, and the inner cynic comes out.
When this happens, I know it is all about her inner world. She’s angry, she’s hurt, she’s wounded, and she doesn’t know how to be anything other than that in those moments. She lashes out at those who reflect another perspective, or she withdraws into emotional fetal position.
She won’t let go of her pain.
The thing is, we all have a dark side.
We’re not all so transparent about it, but it’s there. We draw back from someone who’s just said something we find hurtful. We make a biting sarcastic comment when a kind one or a quiet word would have done.
And we’ve all done it, me included. It happens because we feel vulnerable.
We don’t have to stay there, though.
Hanging onto our pain is a way of staying stuck. Our hurts and wounds are familiar territory, and the stories we tell around them provide a kind of comfort. It’s hard to strike out beyond the frontier.
Beyond that frontier lies verdant country.
In that rich place, our wounds are part of the past, what we left behind. It’s a place where despite what’s happened, because of what’s happened, we intend, we choose to see beyond. We choose to connect with a bigger world, let go of our past, and move into the present.
Some of us have travelled long roads to work through our pain. We’ve grappled with various issues over years, worked to understand them, their causes, how we’ve reacted and why, and struggled to come to terms with them.
In the end, though, it comes to a point where the struggle ends. The old familiar pain is less of a comfort and more of a liability. And we reach a point when we’ve got to let go of our issues and get on with our lives.
So, what will we choose? To hang on to the familiar comfort of old stories, of old pain? Or to let go of the past and write a new story in the present?
I invite you to think about it – it’s a decision we make in each moment. What’s your decision?
