So I typically behave as if pain is to be avoided at all costs. You know, get comfortable, stay comfortable. Repeat. And for pretty much all my life, anything that interrupted this cycle was bad. Capital BAD.
But I’m finding, surprisingly, that it’s really not. The last year (and more) has been an interesting study in trying to open up doors instead of slamming them shut. Like the day I thought “Maybe [that experience] wasn’t about me, as much as it was about them.” The day I wondered if, just possibly, I wasn’t the broken one.
I’ve read (and cannot recommend highly enough) Brene Brown’s books. Her dream was to start a national dialogue on shame and whole-heartedness. And y’all. Those books hit me right where I hurt. Really hurt. Pain I hadn’t realized I was carrying around. Burdens I thought made me unloveable. Experiences that had left me thinking, truly believing, that there was something just wrong with me.
It was shame. All of it. And cracking open the door onto those places in my heart was both excruciating and freeing. And all of that is a fun story for another day. But as a result of all of that, I’m learning to pay attention to pain in an entirely new way.
Pain is not something we’re supposed to sit on, hide, cover up with make-up and the latest fashions, or brush off like we’re all good. When we run up against pain, we’re supposed to STOP. Our pain is there to tell us something. Something important about who we are and what we need to deal with. But we often don’t recognize it as pain. It shows up in disguises that we have to begin to recognize so that we can begin to move past them in positive ways. I can think of two, in particular…
Stop #1: Defensiveness.
Defensiveness is that panic that grips your heart when someone challenges you, your lifestyle, your choices in music or movies, or whatever else you hold dear. A comment is made, and your first response is to clamp down and DEFEND yourself. Get out the big guns and blow away anything that seems to threaten that whatever you’re sure you need to survive.
Can I suggest, please, that defensiveness is really a pain-marker? It’s not a declaration of war; it’s a warning signal. A sign that something deep and real, inside your heart, feels at risk. It signals pain. So the next time you feel defensiveness rise up in your heart and your breathing starts to get hard and you start to type that pushy, unkind comment on social media. STOP. Just stop. Take 3 big breaths. And ask yourself: “Why is this so important to me? What am I really afraid of losing? Is it this? Or is it something bigger? And will fighting with this person really protect what feels threatened?”
My guess is that it’s something bigger. Mine usually is. Defensiveness is often just fear, wrapped up in anger, that my life, my personhood isn’t really important. And my response is, too often, to shut down the person whom I feel is threatening me. Except that doesn’t really help. Defensiveness shuts down. It feels like protection, maybe, but it’s really not. And the only real way to ensure the protection of what’s important to me is to open up, not shut down.
Stop #2: Contempt
This is a huge issue for me. My internal monologue is filled with contempt, unkind thoughts and judgments about everyone and everything around me. But contempt, too, is a marker. It’s not really about whomever I’m holding in contempt. It’s really about me.
And the only way to deal with this issue is to accept that my contempt is an attempt to mask my own pain and fear by blaming and degrading and dehumanizing someone else.
So I have to STOP. I have to catch myself. I have to challenge my contemptuous thoughts with ones that say “He is a person and he matters” or “She is valuable” and “She matters to God.” Even though they still disagree with me. Even thought they’ve been unkind. Even though they are filled with contempt for me. I have to STOP. And when I do that, I find that, instead of spewing out on them a waterfall of contempt, I open up to the fact that maybe they might be hurting themselves. Maybe they just need me to hold their story, their pain instead of adding to it. And maybe I can be patient with them for one more day.
The only way we are going to stem the flood of hatred going on right now. The only way that I can think of to help heal the hurt I see and feel in the posts my friends are sharing. The only way we can be part of the solution…is to STOP.
Pause. Call your responses by their true name. Defensiveness, not patriotism. Contempt, not justice. Bring them out in the open and make them answer for themselves. Our responses say much more about our own pain than about anything else.
Let’s find ways to open our doors, our hearts, our minds, our lives. Share our pain and our stories. Be part of the path forward. I believe this is what Jesus does for us. And I believe this is what He calls us to do for others. Together, we can stop right here.
