14

Learning how to have faith in positive outcomes is hard for those who do not just naturally do it. It takes a lot of mental energy to learn any new skill, but it also takes a lot of mental energy to keep making the same mistakes or keep worrying about what could go wrong. Either way, life feels hard sometimes.

I am in a lot of pain right now, and I don’t really know where to put it. I wish I could just take it out of my body, set it on a side table, and go about my business. I know some people try to do that through repressing their emotional lives, and I’m not sure that’s the answer either. I have tried that method, and it only made matters much worse in the long run. My desire to remove my pain and set it aside suggests that I might pick it up later, and that’s kind of how emotional pain works. It swirls around inside us for a while, then we are distracted or think of something calming or we go for a run or we see a friend, and it subsides, only to start swirling around again.

The best remedy appears to be resilience and time. In other words, enduring as best we can. Some of us naturally endure better than others. Some of us manage to avoid making choices or interacting with people that cause us pain in the first place. Some of us tend to keep making the same mistakes, expecting different results, and suffering the consequences. All of them are part of the human experience.

In the past, the way I endured was a torturous process full of self-flagellation, self-blame, doubt, frustration, confusion, and actual physical symptoms like increased heart rate and nausea. I just sort of punished myself until enough time passed and the pain had worn thin. It has been SUCH a good time. I actually still have memories or moments that feel like faint bruises; when I touch upon them in my mind, I still feel a little bit of pain.

But, a new option for me is saying a prayer to Good or God to just get a little relief, to keep in constant contact (as they say in recovery programs), to participate in a Holy Instant, as written about in A Course in Miracles (I recommend the book on tape - that book, while fascinating, is kind of a doozy).

The craziest part is, in the midst of this writing, while so much heartache is swirling around within me and it feels like there’s not much I can do to stop it, I did actually say a little prayer. I asked for a little bit of help to get through my morning dose of heartbreak. Then I thought of the Holy Instant, but I couldn’t remember the name of the book, so I went to my bookshelf to try and find it. I noticed another book I felt inclined to pick up and read where I had left off (I tend to read sections of several books at a time - have I mentioned that I have an attention problem? Is that not evident in this paragraph alone?), and the bookmarked page had an exercise on it called “Deserving Your Good” (found in You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay).

The exercise asked me to go to a mirror in my house, look at myself, say out loud the things I believe I deserve, and pay attention to my body’s physical response. So, I did that, and I must say that I was filled with this bloom of warmth and calm and clarity in my chest - I believe the Hallmark term for the experience is “heartwarming.” My heart was literally warmed as I reminded myself of all the good things I want and deserve, and I was reminded that I believe in Good now. I believe things will work out in my life. I believe my story is far from over and it will be full of better adventures.

And I think that’s kind of the point of having blind faith in Good (or God, your choice). We can just follow it around believing in it and ourselves, believing that what we need will turn up in due time, that even hardships have a purpose, and Good is coming to us and working for us. All. The. Time.

In other words, my prayer was answered. Unbelievable.