Feeling
No Pain
“...Don't
talk of love well I've heard the word before
It's
sleeping in my memory
And
I won't disturb the slumber of feelings that have died
If
I never loved I never would have cried
I
am a rock, I am an island...”
Paul
Simon (“I am a rock”)
In
the Spirituality Group on Sunday, Lance reminded us of this song by
Paul Simon. Though these words are not in the original lyrics, when
sung it usually ends, “For a rock feels no pain, and an island
never cries.”
I
know I've been writing a lot lately about love and fear, and you're
probably awfully tired of reading about it, but indulge me for one
more post. We're well aware of all the free floating anger, and its
consequences—the anger of injustice, the anger of competing
religions, competing nations and competing politicians. There's so,
so much anger flying around, and here's why: because it's easier to
feel anger than it is to feel pain and grief.
Anger
feels potent. It feels powerful and righteous. We motivate ourselves
with anger to get up and do something. It fuels us because it's full
of adrenalin. Grief and pain don't feel good at all—just sad and
impotent. The problem with anger is that it becomes the hammer seeing
everything as a bunch of nails. It hits what is not a nail equally as
hard as it hits the nails. It causes the prolonged pumping of
cortisol through our bodies in excess, and that leads to all kinds of
problems including physical pain, heart disease and bonafide impotence and infertility. Sooner or later the anger pump collapses
from sheer overwork, and then we are indeed left in a puddle of
depression and despair.
The
other problem with anger is that we can't think straight when we're
in a rage. Our bodies are equipped to react rather than respond. We
say and do things when we're angry that we later regret. Sometimes we
end up in the legal system, or even wounded or dead because we
followed the path of anger to it's inevitable end.
Legitimate
grief, on the other hand, lends itself to deeper thinking. When we
allow ourselves to really think about what is happening in the world,
we will feel terribly sad, yes, but we will also think of ways to make a difference with our little piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
We can respond to grief in positive ways; we can use the pain we feel
to improve our own life and the lives of others. This path leads to
healing.
We
can be a rock that feels no pain, an island that never cries, or we
can be a human being that feels both and answers with an open heart.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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