"The journey is learning that pain, like love, is simply something to surrender to. It's a holy space we can enter with people only if we promise not to tidy up. So I will sit with my pain by letting my own heart break. I will love others in pain by volunteering to let my heart break with them. I'll be helpless and broken and still - surrendered to my powerlessness."Read it again. More slowly. Savor every sentence.
My friend, Rhiannon, pointed this quote out to me. My friend, Rhiannon that I clicked with the moment I met her. My friend Rhiannon who gets me, who sees me.
And because I believe in signs that show you the way on your path, I knew it was telling me something. So I read it again and listened to my heart tell me what this sign was saying. And then I knew. The words jumped out at the page (okay, the screen) to me "surrendered to my powerlessness". And then further back up, "It's a holy space we can enter with people only if we promise not to tidy up."
You see, I had recently began being depressed and sad about aging. But we are powerless against aging, aren't we? Unless I begin worshiping at the idol of vanity, I am going to begin to sag, wrinkle, shift and fade. We all do. But there is more power in surrendering to my powerlessness than fight a losing battle and become completely wounded in the midst of it. All before finally dying. And who the hell wants to walk toward death all miserable, beat up and defeated? Certainly not me.
I do not want to find myself at the age of 70, or 80 or 90 still hating myself because I am not perfectly fresh and young. No. No. No.
So, I am going to create the holy space, as Glennon calls it, of my pain and allow you in. It will be messy. I am not cleaning it up first. You will see it, because if I don't allow you to see it, I am not being real with myself or with you. I would be helping to perpetuate that war out there that is against women.
So, please come into my space.
Surrender with me.
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