The kindest gift I’ve ever given myself was the ability to feel my pain. I wouldn’t have survived my childhood or the agony that my children lived through if I hadn’t allowed myself to grieve the tremendous losses we had incurred. Losses so monumental that only God could restore what was taken.
When I hid my pain, my suffering continued.
When I hid my grief, anger brewed under the surface of my life.
When I hid empathy for what I’d lived through, injustices always found me.
When I welcomed grief, the pain had an avenue to leave me through. Without that open door, it remained stuffed inside me.
Like an avalanche it bellowed out of me. I can’t tell you how long or how often I had to cry but it seemed like years. I still cry. And, that’s okay. The pain leaves me now. It is no longer encased in my internal being.
It’s like I’ve been split open from the inside out. What remains in me is now the best of life. Sure, pain finds me — still. That’s okay. I know how to get rid of it now.
No more denial. The gift of seeing myself has been the best gift God ever gave me.
It changes everything!