When you rush through the pain in an effort to “be positive”, you never give yourself the space to realize just how much you are able to handle. Because holding pain takes courage. It takes strength. It takes vulnerability. It takes trust and believing that you will emerge on the other side, intact and still together.

It takes re-membering the entirety of the human experience. It takes owning up to the disowned parts of you, giving voice to the unmet needs in you, being vulnerable to the truth of your experience, and not rushing the process.

Maybe your story is not “being written”; maybe you are the one writing it. And perhaps these are the moments when the universe hands you the pen and you get to tell your tale of extraordinary courage.

Isn’t this the very process at the heart of growth, healing, and recovery? Growth is not possible without pain. Recovery doesn’t happen without reflection. Healing implies a prior wounding. Don’t skip the pain for empty positivity. Allow your experience of suffering to deepen your experience of joy.

But, it may be useful to add, don’t cling to the suffering. Don’t grasp it. Hold it loosely. Let it hang, airborne in the space between our cupped palms. There, but only gently. Present, but not overpowering. Held, but only softly.

Suffering makes joy all the sweeter. But don’t lose sight of joy because you are so drawn into your pain. There is a time and a season for everything. A natural sacred ebb and flow. The metronome tapping out the rhythm of life.

Love and light and balance, beloveds.