Hurting and Holding Space -

 There's physical pain - and I've had my share particularly this past 12 years - yet you go to the doctor, surgeon, chiropractor, massage therapist, acupuncturist, rest, meds, etc., and most likely that physical pain will heal, or at the least, bearable. I'm still dealing with the repercussions of cancer treatment and accidents exacerbated because of cancer; one more surgery to go, and hopefully I'm finished. 

There's also physical pain brought on my trauma - physical or emotional, and yesterday at the dentist, he told me my jaw clenching was speeding up the corrosion of my molars, and I would need crowns or bridges. As well, sleep and I haven't been acquaintances for years, and typically my sleep only happens with a pocket-full of well planned and well staged sleeping meds. I get a routine down, sleep well with that, things change, begin again. 

I know where this trauma comes from; I've been here for years, marking the years, months, weeks, until I can be free of some of it and truly heal my physical, brought on by emotional, pain. 

And then there's moral or emotional or spiritual pain. And I think I'm healed and moving forward, until something is said, posted, shared, and the pain comes leaping forward, from the other room where I set it down. And when that door is opened, all sorts of pain leaps out and comes to visit me. 

For the most part I address it, acknowledge it, examine it, breathe through it, then excuse it. And that works; it's what I preach, it's what I practice. I've certainly sat with all of this - whether that's in the operating room, on a journey, with a therapist, or in prayer and contemplation. 

And yet - 

I'm sorely afraid that twenty years of moral, emotional, and spiritual pain is waiting at the closet door, for me to open, and it's a door I must open in order to rid them from my house, rather than move them to another shelf. 

And how do I do this?  NT, Luke 4:23, states, "Physician, heal thyself." Can I expect my clients to listen to me, if I have not taken care of what ails me? Yet I think I have, until I realize I haven't. 

I've worked through so much the past two decades, and I'm proud and pleased at what I have removed from my closet; yet like clothes that no longer fit, but sit in the closet, waiting, wondering, looming, always there, it's time to open the door, sort, and move them out forever. 

Perhaps these past decades of keeping trauma in the closet has been my way of holding space for myself, knowing the time will come, letting go of judging myself, and moving forward with love - for myself, my trauma, my others.