And all those other days, Charlie Brown, we will fight or celebrate or mourn or laugh or despair or hope –
but we will live.
Spiritual sandpaper is a term I learned from a woman named Linda (not changing the name to protect the innocent – ’cause there aren’t any, in this case). There are people or circumstances, that are unavoidable, who can teach us to let go – or accept, if we will allow it.
Sometimes, however, the sandpaper feels like it’s taking off the first layer of skin and sometimes, working right down to MY NERVES*. In that moment, when I want to scream or walk away, is my true opportunity for acceptance. Sometimes I am accepting – and
sometimes I am fucking NOT.
Unfortunately, discomfort is the springboard of growth. So the minute I walk out of the room or change the subject – or ignore the situation altogether, I postpone the lesson. Dang it!
“A lot of people want to be sober, but not a lot of people want to get sober”
Me
Because getting sober requires running the emotional gauntlet of past mistakes, attitude adjustments, new understandings and forgiveness – of self and others. The phrase ‘darkest before the dawn’ comes screaming into my mind…because at the last minute when my awareness must shift, my judgment must be released, my humiliation must be accepted – the discomfort can be so great I feel I cannot stand it. But for all those moments when I have made the decision to sit in the discomfort and wait for the dawn to break, the relief has been worth the anguish of willingness.
The best possible news is the relief that comes from that willingness lasts for a long, long time. The consciousness that comes with the breakthrough and the new awareness that, in fact, I did not die in the process and I am better for having been willing to go through it, means my outlook is forever changed.
I am grateful to have learned that if I am experiencing discomfort then I am the problem…the inventory is always mine and never the other man’s.
When I am experiencing discomfort, I have work to do – and must decide in the moment to do it – or not. And even in discomfort, knowing I have a choice is better than believing someone else is in control of how I feel.
Crazy, that.
*Homage to my friend, Roseanne Falbo,
who died unexpectedly this month.
Her go-to phrase, "Oh my nerves"
got us through some difficult days and
nights in St. Louis theatre in the '80s.
Cheers, Ro Ro
