Heal!

Heal! I yelled at my broken and hurt friend. She sobbed softly whilst ignoring me, she had no more strength to argue, fight or wail. She sat there, head in hands, sobbing her heart out. There is no doubt I wanted to help but my method was questionable. Her pain was becoming an irritation and distraction to me, I wanted things to get back to normal as soon as possible so we can continue to do the things we enjoy and our friendship restored to its happy ebb. I proceeded to make a list of dos and don’ts and thrust it in front of her. ‘You can’t call this person or that person’, ‘you must eat this and not that’, ‘you can only think this and not think that’, ‘do this and not do that’ …. etc. She read the list slowly, lifted her head when she was done and looked at me with disbelief in her eyes. I couldn’t understand the look, all I was doing was trying to help, as far as I was concerned, the quicker we get rid of this pain the better for every one. I guess I was hoping the pain could be wished away, ignored away, maybe disciplined away, overworked anyway, anything , just get rid of it quick and fast. I didn’t even look at the wound, I did not try to understand what brought about the pain, I did not try to nurse it or get someone who knows what they are doing to nurse it, I didn’t bind her wound, I didn’t create a healing environment, neither was I prepared to allow nature to do its slow but steady work of healing. Somehow I felt I had the magical and if I may add unimpassioned power to yank out the pain and force healing.

And who is that friend? The friend here is our heart. Sometime our heart is broken, wounded and confused, in so much more pain than any physical pain and rather than sit down to understand and feel the pain. We want to medicate the pain away, distract the pain away, busy the pain away, silence the pain way, push the pain deep down away and my favourite ‘work the pain away’. Most of us will never treat a dear friend the way I described above, so why treat our heart in the same way? When our heart bleeds and is crushed, it is not for us to play God and question why we should be hurt or how we allowed ourselves to be hurt, or how stupid we are in the first place. This is the time to create a healing and nurturing environment for our heart and extend as much compassion as we can muster to ourselves. And just like our physical bodies, we hand over our broken heart to our maker and allow the kind hand of nature to do its gentle job and slowly, little by little, inch by inch, that heart starts to mend and heal and true, sustainable, long lasting healing is achieved.

Please be a gentle and compassionate friend to yourself and your heart.