Saying Yes to Feel

Saying Yes to feel, also the pain

What happens when we agree to feel pain?

What happens when we allow ourselves to feel the ache, the fear,

the gaping void that threatens to swallow us whole?

The answer is simple, yet powerful:

We come out the other side

Just like that.

We feel, we hurt, we cry —

But we do not die.

We emerge on the other side,

Like a car after a wash

New, clean, fresh.

What’s scarier is the moment before

Knowing the fear is there, knowing the pain exists

And refusing it.

Suppressing it, fighting it, numbing it

Anything but meeting it.

But pain has its own ways of calling for our attention.

And if we don’t choose to listen,

It will scream louder, and louder, and louder.

It’s gentler to listen while it’s still a whisper.

To give it space

In the body, in presence, in awareness.

To host it like a guest

One who stays just for a moment before returning home.

With the curiosity of a child, with an open and trusting heart,

With invitation and permission,

With softness

And then, like a wave rising and falling,

The emotion comes and washes through us

Overwhelming, filling us to the brim.

And then it recedes, dissolves.

Leaving behind the experience.

The cleansing.

The strength born of having met it and moved through.

Power and trust.

And quiet

So much quiet