I can’t think of a more powerful statement. The idea that nothing is permanent can provide relief if we are in physical or emotional pain. And even if we have to accept that we cannot hold onto the good feelings, it’s liberating to know that our suffering will also pass.
We use all kinds of techniques to avoid feeling emotional pain. We can abuse alcohol or drugs. We can keep really busy. We can create dramas as a distraction. But how good does it feel to have a good cry? To release all that emotion. Every time we allow ourselves to truly experience suffering, we are processing the pain. By that I mean that we are moving through it and we are on our way to letting it go because it too shall pass.
People stay in really unhealthy relationships because they don’t want to experience loneliness. Others immerse themselves in work to avoid the pain of grief, only to find that it comes flooding back in spare moments. Childhood traumas can feel like they’re safely locked away, when they really are affecting a survivor’s life every day. Suppressing feelings of grief or anger or hurt or abandonment doesn’t stop the pain, whereas processing the emotion by thinking and feeling your way through it allows us to let it go.
