I think there's something about pain. Pain wears us down, and then teaches us something. It's not always a good thing that it teaches us, mind you, but sometimes it exposes our true selves to us.
You'd be surprised at the discomfort upon a vulnerable, truthful answer to the careless, passing "How are you?" we so loosely toss around by habit (as if it's any more comfortable for you that that question causes you to ugly cry because the truth is: you're a mess). I found myself with no tolerance for the blank stares, or the weakly masked panic at the realization that they don't know what to say, but they don't want me to get emotional...Get over it. I'm going to get emotional when you ask how I am the week (or 3) after ending a serious relationship.
I am one to be honest with my feelings. They are not invalid or unimportant (and anyone who tells you they are is probably not emotionally healthy), but they also don't run my life. I haven't always been this way, and I'm not always successful in it. It's taken some learning that they serve a purpose as well as some unlearning that they're harmful. Having emotions and feelings is to be alive and to be human. Managing them and listening to them well is to be wise.
In pain, you learn the balance: I am not okay, but I need to be in it for a bit so that I come out the other side healthy. If I brush my feelings aside or pretend they don't exist, I'm not moving through them and processing them - I'm letting them build up and likely trip me up later on, when they rear their ugly head due to life's lovely pressures.
Yet somehow, this is something so many of us fail at, so often. We even create a society where we're so uncomfortable with people's pain, we either ignore it or try to throw a bandaid on a bullet wound, so as to move on from the pain. That's one of the worst parts to me about processing the pain I'm in. I'm not afraid of it, I know I can't ignore it, and frankly the first few weeks of this, I haven't wanted to. Even a little less than two weeks from the great shaking in my life, I got the impression that many people wanted not to deal with my pain anymore, all the while it is still incredibly real to me. I wake up every day to it seemingly staring me in the face, as if the very reality had tapped me on the shoulder and dryly growled, "G'morning..."
Typically, anyone that has known me a while would refer to me as happy-go-lucky, fun-loving, and care-free. I've even had people tell me that with a sting of bitterness, as if envy drove their words out. All of that isn't contrived, and I don't really think it's a secret, what I've found to work to be that way. Really, it comes down to working with my emotions. I find that I am a healthier person when I know how to manage and understand them. Whether that means relishing in the joy of a moment, or sitting in the unwelcome, unwanted pain just to stare it down and say I'm not giving up, -- that is the big secret.
The happiness isn't always there...but neither is the pain. I think we each have to come to realize that our emotions don't dictate the value of our moments. Some of the most painful moments of my past, are now considered some of my most valuable. And some of the most happy and free, are bittersweet distant memories that only slightly glimmer. Still others make me cry with joy at their very thought.
I could be proud and attempt to shield that I am in fact human and have emotions that sometimes lay me out cold, but that would somehow suggest that having them is weak, instead of that having them is human. It's funny - though not "haha" funny - how some of the most proud, seemingly strong people I've known, have had the most walls up and likely feel the most alone in their struggles. I even find myself in that sometimes, and so when I am confronted with it in someone else, I strive to choose and show grace. I, if even only faintly, hope that they might lift the veil ever so slightly to let the light into the darkness.
I can't help but to say it again: Emotions are not weakness, they are human. People in pain don't need pity, but they don't need to be ignored or placated either. They need validation that indeed what they're enduring is difficult; they need assurance that they don't go unseen in their struggle; they need another to look on them with empathy and compassion, to slightly lighten the burden and isolation of pain, by being present in it with them; they need to not pretend it isn't happening or call it good to make themselves feel better; they need someone to cry because they're crying. Sadly, pain is a part of this life. As much as it'd be easier to go on intentionally blind to it, we are more likely to have better connected families, better functioning societies, and all around healthier relationships, if we stopped running away from other people's pain, stopped trying to fix it, or explain it away, but embraced it to move through it.
I can't help but to say it again: Emotions are not weakness, they are human. People in pain don't need pity, but they don't need to be ignored or placated either. They need validation that indeed what they're enduring is difficult; they need assurance that they don't go unseen in their struggle; they need another to look on them with empathy and compassion, to slightly lighten the burden and isolation of pain, by being present in it with them; they need to not pretend it isn't happening or call it good to make themselves feel better; they need someone to cry because they're crying. Sadly, pain is a part of this life. As much as it'd be easier to go on intentionally blind to it, we are more likely to have better connected families, better functioning societies, and all around healthier relationships, if we stopped running away from other people's pain, stopped trying to fix it, or explain it away, but embraced it to move through it.
Wading through emotions and especially pain isn't always the easy road, but it certainly is the high one. Our minds and bodies are reacting to our shifting realities in an effort to guide us to process and adapt. We need to allow this not only of others, but also of ourselves. Let yourself feel the emotions that come, but let them wash over you, not steer you.
