Kind Rebirths: Uncomfortable Truths - Not Everything Needs to be Healed
Treating problems with the intent on solving them is probably the most comfortable and humanistic feeling that we possess. Solving problems is a combination of societal pressure and instinct to create balance. It’s honorable and basically a decent way of living. I mean, if you see someone in need, your natural desire is to try and help. If you see someone who is sad, we treat it as something we have to remove. If someone is confused, we want to bring clarity. In grief, we want to arrive at the situation with grace. Each of these instances demonstrates our desire to fix the things that hurt us the most. But, what if this line of thinking isn’t quite complete? I mean, it doesn’t fix what actually needs to be fixed?
Kind Rebirths means to speak truth and honesty into any and all situations, especially the ones that matter the most. When we speak of growth, we speak about reflection and renewal. This is true. But what if some things don’t need fixing? Rebirths don’t necessarily need to begin with restoration or repair. Perhaps it just needs to start with determining what hurts rather than hurrying to label it broken.
Not everything is a wound and not everything requires healing. Maybe they are just moments of experience that take us to a disorientated level with the intention of providing a moment of clarity that simply hasn’t arrived yet. And if the time it takes to reach resolution doesn’t happen immediately, perhaps part of the lesson is patience. Perhaps something is still growing or in motion to help us see and understand a bigger lesson or a bigger message. Let’s consider slowing down in our instinct to label it is a disturbance or conflict or turmoil or whatever we choose to call it. Doing so may cause us to miss the purpose entirely.
Staying mindful and in our moment is not a lesson taught with high frequency. As I pointed out above, we strive to solve problems, not to try and dissect them to derive meaning. Allowing feelings to be feelings, without making them into problems, is one way to transform grief into learning moments that create long-lasting effects. I like to believe that there is wisdom in letting emotions persist long enough for me to process them rather than immediately dismissing them or assigning them a negative destination.
In a culture built on wellness and healing, sometimes relief isn’t exactly what we need. In other times, honesty is needed. Presence is needed. The act of removing the weight often shadows the opportunity to learn. In some cases, emotions change, maybe lessen once they have been fully acknowledged. To be managed, reframed, or to find the spiritual nature in an issue is possibly premature. Everything we find painful isn’t asking to be healed. Sometimes they just need to be acknowledged.
Much of what has made me has been sculpted by loss of love, disappointment, and pain. They have become a part of the emotional and mental landscape of my life. Unless you are like Siddhartha Gautama, the historical Buddha, whose parents went to extreme lengths to shield him from the ugliness and negativity that comes from living in the world (which did not restrain his purpose for wanting the know the other side), I like to look at them like benchmarks or rites of passage. To remove them or take them away is to lose a little piece of who I am, of whom I have become.
A rebirth in this moment does not seek to make yourself into something you are not or something more acceptable to society. It is solely about allowing yourself to be more real and alive in that moment no matter what the circumstances are. I’m not telling you to look for darkness and remain there. I’m asking you to look into the darkness and feel around for the message. That may include something unresolved, something uncertain, or something that has lingered from an event that has long since transpired. Every discomfort is not a defect; they may serve an invaluable purpose beginning with how we treat ourselves and the things that we go through. Increasing compassion and lessoning urgency leads to the path of growth that does not move in a linear fashion nor does it move with an alarm clock.
In truth, some things are meant to be healed (need to be healed) because it’s critical to survival. However, other things arrive at different and delayed times because they have not taught the message that was intended. Living in complexity is to live and love without guarantees. Leave room for the space of transformation and transformative healing. It’s here in that space finds a Kind Rebirth.
Stay mindful…
Rebirth
