Scabs
When I was 6 years old I had a cold sore on my chin. Internally my body was trying to fight off the virus but the incredible itch was seducing me to scratch it. And scratch I did. Often. The scab would bleed, and, well, turn into another scab. I knew I was stopping the healing process but didn’t really care.
How we react to emotional pain and how I scratched my cold sore are similar. No one likes how pain feels and we oftentimes try to avoid it. But what if our uncomfortable feelings were trying to tell us that we were out of balance and that something inside of ourselves needed our attention? Wouldn’t difficult emotions be then serving the same purpose as the scab?
Seems messed up, but don’t think it is. In allowing our natural healing capacity to do it’s job we honour our process, we honour our health, and ultimately, we honour our being. If we stop pushing difficult feelings away and instead welcome them, the feelings eventually pass into the ether, and the scab, in turn, falls away. As nature intended.