Are We Attached to Our Suffering?
I think most people would deny that they are addicted in some way to their pain, to their painful story. I also know that these same people will be appalled when they wake up to the fact that they truly are in some way, enchanted with, even in love with their pain. Eckhart Tolle speaks volumes on this topic and it is very important reading. We form an identity out of our pain and painful stories, a miserable one, but at least we get the (false) comfort of a sense of self.
What happens when this identity starts to melt down? Hopefully this melt down occurs while we are healthy and have a lot of life ahead of us. Are we ready to let go? Can we tolerate the feeling of “no solid ground” beneath our feet as Pema Chodron puts it? Who are we, if not this person who suffers? Are we truly ready to allow ourselves and our lives to be less painful? Or must we hold on tightly to our miserable identity and continue to create pain because that’s “who I am” or “how life is”?
I know I have experienced the entire range of emotion imaginable around this. Sometimes, when the frost melts, a sadness arises, even a great sadness, as we are called forth to let go of something that has been dear to us, our pain. A poem was inspired through me about this, I felt to share it.
A Great Sadness
by Ralph of the BeyondtheMind.org Blog
A great sadness wells up within me,
I know, I must say goodbye
Not to a great lover or friend
I must leave it behind,
The dream,
The bittersweet story
Where I’m going,
I cannot take it with me,
You were a friend
Thank you for all
That you have given,
I’m sorry for when I hurt you
I won’t forget you, but
Now, I must go,
Alone
Without that dream,
Of who I thought I was,
A great sadness wells up within me
While a great Light
Is dawning
My friend, stay alert, that light is dawning within you too. It’s ok to mourn the self we thought we were, it deserves a place in our great halls of remembrance.
In Stillness,
Ralph