Sanding Splinters
We all have issues we’ve bottled up or stuffed from our upbringings, things we’re not comfortable facing. These triggering events, people and circumstances are likely well known to us and habitual. Addressing these complex, suppressed emotions helps us regain a sense of wholeness and balance in our lives.
These upsetting and persistent feelings are emotional charges from our childhood traumas and shadow self. They’re like the rough edge of a freshly split tree (the inner workings of your life) you plunk down in your dining room and try to eat at. Predictably, the rough grain of the wood catches your hands and causes splinters that hurt and fester.
In response, you might take some sandpaper to the rough wood, smoothing it a bit by knocking off the most prominent splinters. This is like acknowledging and assimilating some of the more-charged emotions you suppressed during your childhood. By sanding back even just the high spots, you make the table much more comfortable and inviting to sit at. It’s the same with your life. You don’t have to resolve all of your childhood “stuff” before you start experiencing signs of relief.
Just knocking back the top 10% of any particular emotional charge enables us to avoid much of the discomfort that comes from feeling and experiencing these long-ignored emotions. We’re less likely to react to our triggers, and more likely to respond in a thoughtful, conscious fashion.
The work we do to integrate any particular suppressed emotion makes us more responsive overall, and better equipped to face other issues in our lives. So, get sanding! There’s no time like the present …
Like sanding a piece of wood, consistent attention to integrating our “stuff” causes our lives to become increasingly pleasant and comfortable. We can never create a perfectly smooth tabletop, nor is that the goal. Simply engaging the process of continually sanding the rough bits returns us to the state of peace and grace from which we originated.
The ultimate goal is to create a smooth, welcoming tabletop that invites you to sit and linger: over a meal, a cup of tea, a conversation, … an authentic and well-lived life.