My Kids Joked I'd Write About This
and so here we are 🙄....
Hello♡,
My kids, sitting on the sofa last weekend, started joking about how I always find a lesson in the random events of the day. I want to be clear here, they were making fun of me and it was hilarious. I’ve read that adolescents feeling safe enough to lovingly joke with their parents is a good thing. It’s a sign of secure attachment (and they really also don’t want to hear anymore research I’ve read). SO, when I start to feel my ego or defensiveness wanting to emerge, I try to remember this is good and hide my eye rolls. Their jokes are never mean spirited, but it is fascinating to watch as they, and we as a family, continue to become.
Curious what they were making fun of me about?
YES I do see a lesson in it, and now I AM going to write about it : )
I was walking out onto the patio of a restaurant we were about to have lunch on with some friends, and I felt the most searing pain on my ring finger as I was putting my hand in my pocket. It was so shockingly painful that I honestly thought, “is my pocket on fire?” Not a logical thought, but my mind was scrambling to understand what this pain was. Our brains do this with physical and emotional pain.
Realizing I’d been stung, I walked to where my two older children were waiting and threw my purse down on a bench (why are purses suddenly so heavy when we’re stressed?), and I began the work of pulling off both of the rings stacked on my throbbing finger. My instinct was to MAKE ROOM. I knew the pain would likely cause swelling and I wanted to get those rings off before they wouldn’t come off. I was focused. My kids were fascinated by the focus.
My daughter was particularly intrigued by this choice to concentrate on getting my rings off first (maybe why it was fresh on her mind for mocking later?) “How did I know it would swell? Why was I doing that first?”
And here is the meaning I reflected on as I surveyed my swelling finger:
PAIN REQUIRES ROOM.
I sit with pain every week in my office. Unimaginable pain sometimes, stories I will never say out loud, that are beyond words anyway. Stories that should’ve never happened. Pain that is big and sudden, small and insidious, dull, aching, and constant, confusing, enraging, emerging, you name it. There are so many kinds of pain. But they all require room. Let me explain:
When we’re in pain, the one thing we cannot do is go about our business as usual. We do not honor our pain, nor get what we need to name, heal, and move through pain by powering through our lives. There are the pains that stop us in our tracks and we have no choice but to make room - the space was not voluntarily created. But there are also many pains (and seasons of pain) we are taught to deny, don’t have time to address, don’t know how to address, or just bump along forward with.
I don’t know your pain as you read today. But let me tell you this, I do know it matters. And that the room it requires as there is metaphorical swelling, searing, throbbing, and questions, is ROOM YOU DESERVE.
Make room for your pain. It is normal for things to swell in pain. Our tears, our fears, our feelings all swell. Make room. Stay home when you need to, tell someone, start seeing a helping professional, put yourself gently to bed early with a heating pad and soup. Make room, make all the room you need. There’s no prize for powering through your pain. And if you’ve ever been taught it doesn’t matter, that’s not true. Make room for your pain by being gentle with yourself, and make room for yourself by allowing your full humanity to hurt and ache as needed, and for as long as is needed.
And so just like that, I turned a funny story into a serious one. Pray for my children. They were right, mom did it again.
You deserve room and care to feel your pain,
Monica
Things to share…
Part 2 of my series for Iridescent Women: What I’ve Learned as aTherapist (Part 2): Knowledge Doesn’t Keep You From Human Experience
Things to read:
This article about adult friendship.
This parenting book by Dr. Becky.
This is lovely: personal yet applicable to everybody. I love the metaphor of the bee sting, ring, swollen finger - yes, pain does require room! Thank you.