The difference between a good life and a bad life is how well you walk through the fire. – Carl Jung
As we go through life we receive many unexpected gifts. Some of these gifts come in surprising forms and one of the most surprising is sorrow. It isn’t something we readily seek out, in fact we spend most of our lives running from it. But honoring the sorrowful places inside and the sorrow we’ve experienced has the capacity to heal the void and transform our lives. Buddhists have a technique called tonglen. Essentially it is breathing in the pain and sorrow of others and breathing out relief to ease that pain. It nurtures the tender spot in our own heart that is capable of deep compassion and shifts our perspective about the possible gifts we might receive when we embrace sorrow.
Recently a friend of mine picked up a book for me, Painting Out Of Sorrow. An artist had lost three people close to her in rapid succession and it took her down. She could’ve chosen to stay down and numb all of her heartbreak and devastation but instead she decided to paint it. Sorrow can end up being a sustaining gift of intense creativity. We learn to make it through the most difficult times by using gifts we didn’t even know we possessed, gifts that are only revealed through tremendous pain and suffering.
This is what Jungians call shadow work. Creativity coming from a part of us we don’t often acknowledge or rejoice in, the parts of our self we fear. Usually sorrow is thought of as a place of useless or relentless pain often relegated to the basement of our thoughts and being, suppressed and out of sight. This is why we become suddenly overwhelmed by these emotions we’ve never give a second look. They are things that finally want to be seen. But sorrow has something important to teach us, something that will enrich and nourish us in ways that change us forever. This change often arrives in the most unexpected and life-giving ways. When we honor the dark places we’ve been, the loved ones we’ve lost, the broken hearts and demolished spirit we’ve survived, we shine a light in that darkness. This is how the slow transformation takes place, we have to let it in bit by bit.
There is a Japanese technique called Kintsugi, where a crack or fissure of an object, such as a bowl, is filled with gold. I like to think of this as a metaphor for our own cracked and broken places, the healing attention we give them is the gold fill. In this way the process of healing the wound becomes more valuable than remaining unwounded in some sort of illusion of perfection. This is one of the lessons behind all of these trials we go through. Healing the wound is what transforms us into more of who we are. Where we go from the pain isn’t as important as the way in which we proceed. We carry the gold within us into what comes next. These are the lessons and how well we honor their teachings is what changes our lives.
Letting sorrow transform us has the power to heal our broken places and the hold they have on our life. We are in a dance with life and the missteps are as important as the flourish.
Resting deep in winter is a perfect time to look at the sorrow of what’s been lost to us and navigate our way to welcoming what it teaches. When we reclaim the grip sorrow has on us we take back another piece of our soul.
kb
