Rumi said, “The wound is the place the light enters you.”
I love this gorgeous truth, the poetry of it, the truth in it, the hope of it.
In our times of suffering and trial it is often hard to see the purpose. Instead it’s the “why me?’ It’s the visceral jerking away from pain, it’s the scream. But if we realize that this too shall pass, and in its wake will be strength and color we don’t yet understand, we can hold to hope.
Join me today for insight from a war hostage, a woman who was hit by a car and had her leg paralyzed, and from a man who recovered from a truly traumatic childhood into an engineer of lives, too see how the wound is the place that the light enters you, and the importance of trusting the process.
I want to start with 4 truths today:
A. I was treated unfairly and I feel shame about not being enough, or not succeeding as I expected, or God is unjust and cruel, or life is a bitch and then you die, or …
B. I learned _____________. I trust there is a reason for this experience.
I was listening to Oprah’s Interview, on her podcast Super Soul, with Elizabeth Gilbert. I have to say i was really impressed with Elizabeth and how centered she was. So calm, and the attitude was incredible. Let me tell you why -
Oprah was commenting on the the space in Elizabeth’s life - She’s the one that wrote “Eat, Love, Pray” - when she left her husband and got news that her best friend had a lethal cancer, and she discovered in that moment that she actually was in love with her best friend. She went to her bedside to walk the path of death with her, which was heart wrenching on multiple levels, but the mindset that Elizabeth had was just inspiring. She said, “I came here to live a life fully, so I will take all of it. I came here to do this, I want the whole ride.” She said, “Even in the worst moments I knew this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.”
In the worst times she looks at, “What am I being asked to learn or do right now?” “Why is this being offered to me in this amount of pain?”
Her willingness to feel deeply, to feel the whole range and depth of emotions that living provides for us was so brave. So advanced.
Most of us shy away from pain. We don’t want that range of emotions - I do for sure, but listening to her courage at facing all there was to get out of the experience of living, I was just impressed. I wanted to follow her around and become her disciple.
Something else I really got out of this was that she didn’t try to blame the hard times on God, or question her own worthiness because of her struggle, she simply accepted it as the process of living, and granted herself huge amounts of mercy. No shame in the process of —-I landed here in the wrong marriage or the wrong job, or here we go again, or ..… She says, Go to mercy for yourself, not to shame or judgement, and keep doing your best.
She pointed out that we don’t have to know how to get through a thing, but you square your shoulders and you walk through it. You are good enough. YOU CAN DO...
