Continued from Mourning: Our alienated parts cry out and we admit a sense of powerlessness. We persist forward, asking for help, often to find additional suffering.
“Sell them equipment. Prescribe medication. Keep our patients coming back.”
These were management’s orders to several physicians in a pain clinic. Being people of integrity, the healthcare providers found other places to practice and serve.
Whether our needs are physical, mental, emotional or spiritual, asking for assistance is a wise step, in the healing process. Problems arise, when we give too much of our personal power away.
Early on, we see suffering as something that has happened to us. After admitting our dilemma, we may look for answers in authority figures, books, rituals or regimens.
Though these supports may be the missing elements, they become negatives when we cast all of our expectancy outward, rather than understanding that the core of our grief lies within.
I had a memorable coaching conversation with a young man who discovered a glaring blind spot. As we studied the compilation of his preferences, the trait relieving tension, interested him.
In contrasting his assessment results with other personality types, he realized how much he disliked conflict. I mentioned that smoothing things over and lying were steps away from one another.
He forcefully reacted, “I do not lie!”
When he returned, the next week, his first words were, “I do lie!”
Observing both our strengths and strengths in excess, opens our eyes. As we see more of ourselves, we begin realizing ways that we may have contributed to our grief.
In some cases, our bodies and spirits invite us to wholeness. Instead, we allow our minds’ voices a higher volume and looping privileges of the same old messages that keep us stuck.
At first, our personal advent is about waiting for something or someone to miraculously save us. Then, we realize that Infinite Love resides within.
Though often shrouded in pain, Sacred within invites our alienated parts to come. Oneness opens us to people and things that once seemed other than and we become a part of the season’s magic, by birthing light out into the world.