Pain is a good teacher

"My pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses my understanding" I have this passage from The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran on my fridge. It was first introduced to me about 5 years ago during a Compassionate Teaching workshop with Sue Jones. Coincidently I was assisting one of these workshops the day Josh and I went on our first date. This passage resonated with me then but I don't think I fully grasped its meaning until recently. It's been 3 months since I've been broken up from Josh, two of them living alone in this new space. This is the longest time in awhile, years, that I've gone without a relationship or dating or sex or just some connection on that level. In the past I'd try to have a distraction while I eased out of one relationship in search of another. There are no distractions this time. When you first ease out of a relationship, especially if you are the one who wasn't intending on it ending, your emotions are all over the place. I was a mess that first month, just trying to hold on. I was resisting what I saw before me as my life and just wanted to go back to what felt safe, even if I knew it was dysfunctional. Change doesn't stop for anyone though, so things kept shifting till there was a solid break. Acceptance began to set in once I began to see that yes, this was my life, no getting around it. With acceptance comes strength and courage and bravery - and a connection back to self. That's where I'm at now. It's a good place. It's also a very painful place - I think more painful than the initial realization that things are changing. My friends will often say Josh is such an asshole, you deserve better, you can meet someone who appreciates you, etc etc This may be true. The grass is always greener on the other side - until you get to the other side. I'm not saying this means I should hope for Josh and I to get back together. I am saying that I understand he is a person on his own journey and none of his actions toward me were malicious. Byron Katie has said that when you accuse or blame another person for something you believe they did to turn it around on yourself - ie You don't listen, becomes I don't listen. You were emotionally unavailable, becomes I was emotionally unavailable. This is hard work but it's helped me to see where I've made mistakes. It's helped me to let go of anger, to honor my hurt. It's caused me to really sit with my pain. My pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses my understanding. I have taken this to mean that without such pain I've never known love. The pain I am feeling now is like a dull ache that is just always there - sometimes I am sitting right in it, other times I am aware it's there but can distract from it. It's not sharp or shooting. That sharp shooting pain is really the pain of resistance, non acceptance. It doesn't last. This pain lasts - for how long, possibly forever. It seems the ache might lessen over time but not go away completely. It's a pain in which I am able to recognize that I loved another, perhaps not well, but completely. That's an understanding that I did need. So if anything, I take that away. This is also an understanding that comes with being a mother. Julian has been moving everywhere these days, getting bruises, bumps, falls... and I realize the importance even more so of being fully present with him. I find myself more frustrated these days and this frustration is really my realization I can't keep him safe. And that dull ache comes back and the pain sets in amongst this intense joy around his curiosity and independence and fearlessness and I realize - this is love. I do know love after all. I know it very well. My pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses my understanding.