Last month the father of a dear friend passed away. While visiting the family to offer condolences, I realized how clever we have become in hiding our pain, today. There she was, smiling and comforting us, and making sure we are all good.
Now, I do not know much, but I know that the more you show how well you are doing during difficult times, the deeper your scar is!
A few years back, when I first got my divorce, I sought healing help. I felt happy at the time, and this was scaring me. I feared that my happiness would merely be a façade of denial, and the sorrow volcano would just erupt when I least expect it. I remember that the healer after having spent some time with me, told me that I had already finished all the mourning in me and that the happiness I felt was real. And that is one of the rare cases she has come across. It must have taken me the healing of many deep scars to master sealing a wound today.
I developed a hobby of observing people and watching them work their ways out of traumas. Some do it on their own, some reach out and seek help, and some love to be recognized by their scars. People belonging to that last type are by far the most toxic people I have come across in my life.
How deep we immerse ourselves in our life turbulences is just insane.
How we sometimes inflict that psychological pain on our bodies; the haircuts, the tattoos, the binge eating to fill that empty void; which is almost never physical!
And today, the strong ones of us define ourselves by our baggage of issues.
Hi. My name is Amira and I suffer from daddy issues. You will have to master being a man that I look up to, without reminding me of my father! Easy job, come on!
Hi. I am Ahmad. I’ve been cheated on by my ex-wife. You will have to endure with me because I plan to blame you for that for a long time. It is not about you. It is about what relationships remind me of.
And then the eternal question; how do we deal with the fact that even when we were good, karma didn’t serve us right? I love the saying, “Expecting life to treat you well because you are a good person, is like expecting a lion not to eat you because you are a vegetarian!” Yes. Bad things happen to good people too. Yes, a good, pretty wife gets cheated on and left for the cheater. And that wife, like all the other pained ones, gets to suffer from her scar, but she has to suffer in grace. She has to look intact. No puffed eyes, she hasn’t been crying all night. She must act as if she too stopped wanting the man who abandoned her. She must lie because we pity wounded people. Society would just not let her flaunt her scar and scream when she needs to. They all tried to help, but no one can heal that scar. Her boss would offer her a month off. Her friends try to set her up fast, not realizing that she kept some of her ex-husband’s clothes. Clothes that vividly carry his scent still.
What scar? She’s fine!
How is it that they don’t teach us early on how fine it is to mourn? Because it is only natural. What is so shameful about scars? Why do we feel an urge to hide them?
Man up! Men don’t cry!
True they don’t, and that’s why they have higher risks of heart attacks! So how about we man up and say when it hurts? How about we man up and reach for help when we need to?
It took me so long to coexist with my scars. And today I easily recognize people who do, too. The Lighter Souls, I call them. The ones who haven’t had it easy, but are always working on having it easy.
The healing ground we all need is just the very few places and people where we do not have to act too strong all the time. Maybe we just need to work on having more of those, to be able to flaunt our scars when it hurts. But we should never ever forget to flaunt our victory of not letting that scar control us anymore!