I used to think I wanted to end suffering, and hurt, and pain.
That was the whole reason I started Reclaim, honestly.
I had it in my heart, back in 2015, that I was going to stop the cycle of hurt somehow.
It wasn't until the last two years that I really started piecing together the growth and beauty that comes from suffering. Of course, while you're in it, it doesn't seem so beautiful. In fact, it really just plain BITES!
As I sat in my own suffering, feeling like I really had no choice but to sit in it, I started noticing some amazing things coming out of those dark places.
I grew to a place of solidity. An unshakability that I didn't possess before.
I began to think of my life before the suffering and everything seemed a little... dull. Like there wasn't much depth or meaning to it. It felt like I was just floating along in life, experiencing what would happen and not really knowing what to make of anything because it was all just so... mundane.
It wasn't until I truly knew suffering that I started to find depth and meaning in my life.
I'm a mom, so I relate everything to motherhood, but even if you aren't a mom you'll see some parallels...
My mom always tried to shield me from suffering. And for the most part, it worked. I didn't get into a lot of trouble in my adolescence, and the trouble I did get into was pretty minor. I learned some valuable lessons through those trials, experienced within the safety of my parents house, being under 18.
But there was suffering that I missed out on in some cases too.
I don't blame her for that, because when I look at my own children I really don't want to see them suffering, and in the past I've tried to shield or shelter them from it as much as possible.
I even started a fight with a two year old one time to get my daughter's toy back. I am still peeved at that little monster, come to think of it!
My point is, I have been forced to not only suffer myself, but to watch my kids suffer and not be able to do a dang thing about it.
There are times when they are not in my care, and they are inevitably exposed to mental and emotional and sometimes even physical abuse and there is absolutely nothing I can legally do about it. Until they are hurt enough that bruises or marks are unmistakable AND provable as to where they came from, they are unprotected. Emotionally and mentally, they are completely unprotected.
So what do I do? As a mother it is hard to sit back and watch this. However, the more research I do, and the more I strategize my plan for motherhood, and what style and stance I will take, the more I am noticing that people who suffer greatly, become great.
What an opportunity and a gift I have to actually show my babies, at a young age, how to handle a very difficult and toxic world. No matter what happens in life, whether I'm there or not, they will know how to set their own barometer to withstand the toxicities of the world.
My only responsibility is to live an example of the live that I wish for them to live.
I charge you with this same thing today.
Suffering is inevitable. Pain will happen. What are you going to do with it?
Hurting people hurt people... but at the same time, but with a different perspective, hurting people heal people too.
An oyster doesn't form a pearl without the injury of a single piece of sand, that could devastate the flesh of the oyster without the silky coating that covers it.
What will you choose to do with the grains of sand in your life. Will you let them cut you? Or will you coat those grains with silk, and make something beautiful and valuable out of them.
Sit in your suffering until you see it as something else.
And know that I love you, and I'm here for you!
Stay Sparkly, Sweet Sister.