The Acknowledgment of Hurt

I sit in the early-morning light filtering through the bamboo blinds, warm cup of coffee in hand, admiring my 17 month-old son as he continues to explore the world around him—the dog, the cats (their tails, especially), the books on the shelves, the shoes by the door, the various gates blocking access to the various staircases, the trucks and blocks and dolls on the floor. He is completely at ease in his own body. Daring. Fearless. Independent in a way that both thrills me and breaks my heart.

He is growing up, this little man of mine. He walks, he almost-talks, he has a wonderful sense of humour. I still breastfeed him, but he loves to feed himself now, his small but capable hands shoving fistfuls of food in his mouth and chewing carefully with his gums and his eight tiny teeth. He dances. He waits for the perfect song to come on the radio and then he dances, moving his arms and legs and hips in ways that amaze me (where did he learn that?) He is entirely content and all but ignores me. This is his time, his own morning adventure, his own growth and his own learning, and I am but the witness (for which I am grateful, for this is my time, too).

But, every morning, there is a moment when that all changes. It happens when he stands too quickly, from his daddy-made fort, and whacks his head on the underside of the kitchen table. It happens when he runs too eagerly after his soccer ball and trips over his own feet, falling hard on his knees. It happens when he attempts to get off the couch, slips, and lands on his bum with a thump.

The injury is always slightly different but the reaction is always the same. There is no crying, no melt down at all. There is only the freezing, the whispered “ow,” and the eyes—those big blue eyes that grow even bigger as they wait for something, something, something. Something important. Something deeply, deeply needed.

Me.

But not much of me.

There is no need, here, for my hands or my arms or my lap. There is no need for him to be picked up, rocked, and soothed. There is no need for me to fix anything, or make anything go away. There is just the need for me to see that he has fallen (or whacked his head, or thumped his bum). There is the simple need for me to acknowledge, with my eyes and my voice, that a part of him is hurting.

That’s it. That’s all he needs. A gentle recognition of his pain, no matter how minor it may be.

It’s so simple, it’s almost nothing at all. And yet, in this moment, for him, it is everything. It is what he needs to unfreeze, to keep playing and exploring and adventuring into the world around him. It is what he needs to go on.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot, in terms of my healing practice and in terms of life, in general.

I’ve been thinking about how often we encounter people who are hurting—individually and collectively—and about how quick we are to dismiss the hurt. To shove it aside. To skim over it on our way to offering advice and “solutions.” I’ve been thinking about how much better (kinder, gentler, softer) human life would be if we stopped that. If we paused a bit longer. Inhaled a bit deeper. Opened ourselves up to the broken and the tender.

If there’s one thing clinical work has taught me it’s that what people primarily want and need is not to be saved or changed or cured, but seen—seen and wholly accepted as the busted-but-still-beating hearts they are.

When we see the hurt, we honour the hurt. We honour the journey and the tumbles and the triumphs. We honour the fight and the fear and the courage. We honour the injuries and the resilience that make us all human.

We, as a society, are uncomfortable with hurt. And we are equally uncomfortable with stillness and silence. This is why when we see or hear another’s pain we rush to fill up the empty spaces with a jumble of words.

“You really need to get over it.”

“I know a great psychotherapist/counsellor/acupuncturist/healer who could help you get over it.”

“Something similar happened to me and this is what I did to get over it.”

Our intentions are good. Our heart is in the right place. We want to help. Yes, yes, yes.

But we are going about it all wrong.

We are being guided by this false notion that doing is better than being, that talking is better than listening, and that giving is better than receiving.

It is not.

We need to stop being so quick to give and learn how to receive—how to fully receive the bleeding or scabbing or scarring wounds of others, how to let them breathe a little, without choking them with good intentions.

Before we utter, “I can help you” (or any word at all), we need communicate the simple yet profoundly powerful, “I see you.” Before we rush into the brain-doing, we need to get comfortable with the heart-feeling, with the act of gently holding space for pain. This is where the healing begins.

As I sit here, observing my son, marvelling at his bravery and determination, I am reminded that we are all different, but we are all the same, too.

We are the same in the way that we toddle through life, regardless of age or experience, making a million mistakes and tripping over our own feet, again and again. We are the same in the way that we stumble and whack our heads and whack our hearts. And we are the same in the way that we freeze, when hurting, and in the way our eyes grow wide as we seek something, something, something. Something important. Something deeply, deeply needed.

Us. Each other. A shared human understanding of what it means to be hurting.

This. This is what we need—not only as toddlers, but as adult individuals, as communities, as a world—to unfreeze. To try again. To trust again. To start to heal.

This is what we need to go on.

Reclaiming Sad

I remember.

The slow and steady slide into dark, into murky.

I remember knees buckling, heart splitting, breath catching between a word and a thought.

I remember melting into a puddle of the person I once was.

I remember sadness. (And I know you do too.)

We have been sad. We have felt the foundation crack under the weight of insurmountable sorrow. Slumped forward, head in our hands, we have been broken and frightened and completely alone.

We avoid sad.

We swallow the lump, we crack a joke, we chug a beer, we smoke some pot, we watch TV, we go to sleep. We become accustomed to the tightness in our chest and the numbness in our stomach. We choose the numbness; there is safety there.

But the numbness is killing us, incinerating us from the inside out. Our bodies are breaking; our minds, detonating. We pop the pills and go to work while the emotional eruption that is continually suppressed spits toxins into our veins and threatens the integrity of our cells.

We are dying of suppressed sadness. We are drowning in diversions. We are so terrified of embracing the sad that we constantly look away. Everyday, we look away.

The result is our planet, in a state of decay.

I reclaim my planet.

I see myself swimming upstream, through the weeds and against the current. Reaching the calm waters that soothe and sustain. Feeling safe again, floating in my Mother’s womb.

I allow the barriers to disintegrate, the facade to crumble, the numbness to fade until all that remains is the crimson heart that feels and hurts and breaks open, rendering me (and you) so very vulnerable and beautifully human.

I reclaim my beauty.

There is so much beauty in sadness. Because sadness is real. It cannot be faked or shaped or dressed up. It is crude and fervent and powerful. It brings us to our knees and makes us heave and swell and sob and churn until we are raw. Until we are ready.

For the stillness.

There is an infinite source of resilience and strength that follows every sadness. It waits until we are drained and hollow before making itself known. Like the luminescence that lingers after the downpour, it waits until there is a space. A pause. A silence. Then it bathes us in colour, floods us with wonder.

It replenishes our stores of hope and faith until we can breathe again. Until the mist lifts and we can see again. Until we can take another step, dance another dance, ask another question, take another chance.

Suddenly we find ourselves standing tall, shaken and unsettled, but immersed in the moment and more sure-footed than ever before. We no longer fear the diagnosis, the circumstance, the bad news, the outcome. We no longer fear at all.

There is nothing to fear about sadness. Without real sadness, there can be no real joy.

Let us be sad for the child without food, the woman without a coat, the dog without a home. Let us be sad for the friend with a broken heart, the patient with a scary chart, the bird with a broken wing. Let us be sad for the disintegrating health of our forests, of our oceans, of our skies. Let us be sad for the poverty-stricken families, the war-torn countries, the abused and the lonely and the desperate and the lost.

Let us cry and ache and break and feel. Let the sadness strip us, rip us, and pummel us into the ground until it is time to heal.

Let us be wide open. When we are wide open, love rushes in. Love rushes out. We become a vehicle of love and compassion. We become goodness itself.

Let us not look away, run away, stay away. With eyes open, heart broken, let us stand. Let us reach out our hand.

I reclaim my sadness.

I don’t want to be cheered up or picked up or distracted. I don’t want to hear your joke, answer your question, or make up excuses. I want to see what needs to be seen and feel what needs to be felt. I want the waves to crash over me and leave me dripping wet.

Let me be sad. Let me be human and godlike and childlike. Let me be present and vulnerable and afraid. Let me weep for the world and strive for redemption. Let me find my rainbow, my strength under the sorrow. Let me help you find yours.

Let me remember that in order to rise above the misery I must first slide into the dark, murky depths of it.

I remember.

***

This week's affirmation: I reach out my hand whenever I can.

Seeking Stillness

My city was attacked this weekend. Savagely assaulted, besieged, and set ablaze.

Voices were silenced and causes overshadowed by a few thrill-seeking cowards in black masks who have zero understanding of, or respect for, the purpose of protest.

Riveted to my TV screen, I watched in horror as the city I love became a broken, burning bedlam.

I was furious. Outraged. I swore, I screamed, I changed my Facebook status to one of fierce condemnation,

Blood boiling, heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through my veins, I became a vehicle of bitterness and rage.

And I hated. I hated the G20 Summit. I hated the leaders and their private jets and their expensive suits and their wives. I hated them for shaking hands and smiling for the cameras and eating at the Fairmont while the city that hosted them was being destroyed. I hated the so-called anarchists who used my city as a platform to spread their vile, vicious non-message. I hated that the media frenzy was no doubt encouraging them. I hated that innocent and well-intentioned people were being unjustly arrested. I hated that poverty issues, gender issues, health issues, and green issues were being suppressed. I hated that the money that was spent on G20 security could have bought one hundred million mosquito nets in malaria-infested countries.

I hated so strongly and vehemently that the hate completely engulfed me. I merged with it, morphed into it. I became the hurricane itself, spewing venomous words and toxic thoughts into the world.

Deepak Chopra once stated, “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.”

My stillness had vanished. I had lost it, along with any semblance of perspective.

For a few brief hours I became part of the problem.

Because isn’t that how problems grow? How negativity spreads? How hate circulates? How fear propagates?

When we lose sight of who we are and allow ourselves to be overtaken by external circumstances we, quite simply, lose altogether.

I know this. And not in a superficial sense but in an innate and profound way. I know this.

And yet, with jets roaring overhead and sirens blaring in the distance, the innate and profound knowing that exists in my core dissolved almost entirely.

Almost.

At around 2am on Sunday morning, while I obsessively followed the tweets of those witnessing the brutality downtown, something happened: the hardened shield encircling my heart, obstructing all feelings but anger and hate, began to crack. I could feel the fissures snaking up, down, and around, allowing slivers of light to shine in.

I paused. Breathed. Closed my eyes. Opened myself up to the stillness of tranquility. Of safety. Of love.

I stayed in this place of inner joy and peace for a very long time, letting go of my anger, my hate, my fear, my frustration, allowing wave after wave of comfort and contentment to wash over me.

This is where power begins. In this place of genuine passion and purpose. Here, there is clarity.

Here, there is hope.

Numerous studies have been done, in recent years, to substantiate the claim that energy, in all its forms, has a deep and lasting impact on people, animals, and the planet itself.

The Global Coherence Initiative is a collaborative research project which studies the relationship between living beings and the Earth’s magnetic fields. Studies have in fact demonstrated a correlation between changes in the Earth’s magnetic fields and changes in a variety of biological functions (brainwaves, nervous system activity, heart rhythm, memory, etc.) Incredibly, researchers also hypothesize that the Earth’s fields can be directly impacted by human emotions.

The significance of this cannot be overstated: human emotions may play a key role (the key role) in the well-being of all living things and of the planet itself.

Though we cannot see it, energy spreads. It reaches far and wide. It communicates. It connects. It activates. And, as such, it can provoke change. It can transform conflict into cooperation, discord into harmony. It can balance imbalances.

This is not some airy new-age concept, but a phenomenon that many modern scientists do not deny: human energy can heal the world.

Let us remember this.

During times of crisis, of despair, of oppression. During times of fear, of distress, of injustice. During times of sorrow, of misfortune, of pain, let us remember this.

Resorting to violence and hatred, though oftentimes tempting, is never the answer.

Stillness is the answer.

And by stillness I don’t mean inaction. Action is critical. Protests are crucial. Expression is essential. But the acting, protesting, and expressing must come from a place of stillness, of knowing, of authenticity, of love.

We are more powerful than we know. The future is, quite literally, in our hands.

In our hearts.

***

Here is a tribute to the peaceful protesters who marched, sang, danced, and hoped. I celebrate you.

What the Media Ignored.

***

This week’s affirmation: Though chaos surrounds me, my heart is still.