Moving towards the pain

Last night, I hear Jesmyn Ward speak. It is a beautiful talk.

This morning, I read her account in the book, “Why we write about ourselves”. Each of the 20 memoirist has a chapter.   

In her chapter, she talks about how raw and terrifying it feels to write and revisit the painful parts of her life. Yet, it is something that must be done.  I remember similar lines from the prologue of her memoir, Men we Reaped. I find the book. Here they those lines:

My hope is that learning something about our lives and the lives of the people in my community will mean that when I get to the heart, when my marches forward through the past and backward from the present meet in the middle with my brother’s death, I’ll understand a bit better why this epidemic happened, about how the history of racism and economic inequality and lapsed public and personal responsibility festered and turned sour and spread here. Hopefully, I’ll understand why my brother died while I live, and why I’ve been saddled with this rotten fucking story.

I read her advice for memoir writers (I have no plans of writing a memoir, by the way. My life is simply not as significant).

You get the most powerful material when you write towards whatever hurts. Don’t avoid it. Don’t run from it. Don’t write towards what’s easy. We recognize our humanity in those most difficult moments that people share.  

I stare at the words.

Earlier in the week, I have an appointment with a Rolfer. He tells me certain parts of my body and especially abdomen, feel calm to the point of no movement. I sense he is finding nice ways of saying ‘dead’. I nod. I know what he means. It’s years of pain from surgeries and illness that I’ve been protecting myself from. It’s the pain that I don’t allow myself to feel. For to feel it, means to hurt.  

Slowly, we begin to desensitize ourselves from the parts that feel painful. Slowly, we begin to build walls, shutting the painful portions out. Not feeling them, not sensing them. It feels safer, it feels like protection. For it takes too much courage to face the angry painful parts. After all, what does one do in a face to face encounter with the angry parts? How do we assuage the angry parts? With compassion? Where do we find these huge reserves of compassion, this brave compassion, not only to soothe and support, but to feel safe again?

So we shut ourselves and not allow ourselves to feel and go about our daily day. You’re so strong, they tell me. Am I? Or am I a coward? How can I find the courage to move towards the pain, without letting it destroy me?  

In not allowing movement or feeling or sensation, life goes away too, this wise experienced Rolfer tells me. (Well, I paraphrase, his words are more eloquent).

I suppose it’s an obvious thing to do in times of trauma, in a bid to protect and preserve oneself. However, some of us may turn it into an art. Physical and emotional.

A while back, someone tells me that there seems to be a wall around me and that I won’t allow her in. I am surprised to hear her say it. For in my mind, this person has caused me pain and I don’t want to allow myself to get close in the fear that I will get hurt again

But I appreciate her telling me so. I appreciate that she has the energy to move forth. It makes me wonder if I keep myself in a self-preservation mode. I am unsure I will have the energy to deal with hurt feelings should things get unpleasant in the future. That it will knock me down harder than it will her. Does it all come down to how much energy we all have? If so, life is a bitch.  

Walls keep us safe. Walls also limit. Limit life even, as per my Rolfer.

For when we hurt, we build walls. Walls of apprehension, and insecurity and self-preservation. Maybe they serve a purpose. For a while. But to have them forever, may mean to also close out the good, the joy and a certain flow of life even.

So is there really no other option, but to move towards the pain if we want life to flow its natural course? Armed with willingness and compassion, is it even possible, I wonder. And I sincerely hope it is.