Ah Yes, The Past Can Hurt

During a recent- but fortunately very minor and somewhat trivial- personal "crisis", a good friend of mine came around to sit with me late one night to offer a bit of moral support. We sat and ate ice cream, I cried (such a cliché scenario) and we just talked it all out. Just as an aside though- what is life without friends like this? Anyway, during our time together that night one of the little gems of encouragement she offered me really resonated with me, and went as follows...

She asked did I recall the scene from the Lion King where Simba tells Rafiki he is apprehensive about returning to Pride Rock and having to face his past. In response to which Rafiki whacks Simba with his stick and when Simba asks why Rafiki answers "it doesn't matter, it's in the past" Simba replies, "yeah, but it still hurts" and Rafiki wisely responds:

"Ah yes, the past can hurt, but the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it"

Then, when Rafiki takes another swing at Simba he dodges the stick, having learnt from his past.

"Next time, girl, you dodge that stick!" my friend jested.

Yes girl, dodge that stick. 

The reality of life is that some time or another you're going to get hurt, and often we experience things that continue to pain us for a long time after. It's unfortunate and sad but injury in life is inevitable.

As a child and well into my early teens I often experienced a bizarre, crippling sense of guilt. Now, being older, I can identify these early feelings as probably a touch of anxiety, but at the time it was something that was very difficult for me to understand. During my childhood these feelings were very often perpetuated by some of the inevitable mistakes I made growing up, the vast majority of which were of very little importance- though of course, at the time they felt very big. I grew up often feeling like I was a much worse person than the people around me, that no one else was as bad as me, no one else had done the things that I had done and I felt very ashamed. Although of course, in reality I was no worse than any other child my age, I spent a lot of time brooding and tormenting myself over some of the mistakes and slip-ups I felt I had made.

C.S. Lewis once said:

 "Experience: that most brutal of teachers but you learn, my God, do you learn"

As I got older I eventually came to realise that in fact, everyone makes mistakes, everyone makes poor choices and everyone does and says things they wish they hadn't; they always have done and always will do. However, something that I've learnt having made what I consider to be some genuinely hideous mistakes so far in my relatively short life is that to dwell on the mistakes we've made in the past does not do us the tiniest bit of good. Essentially what's done is done and all you can do is forgive yourself, let go, and just keep moving along, since really, life is a business of trial and error.

Of course, however, some of the pain we encounter in life isn't so simple. There are types of hurt that come suddenly in ways that are impossible to anticipate or control and most times, very difficult to understand. 

Having only been on this planet for 19 years, I don't claim to be an expert on life by any means, but as time has gone on something I have learnt is that the more hurt or pain we experience, the better equipped we are to deal with things that are still to come. In that place in time when you are really hurting bad, sometimes it feels impossible to see how anything good could come out of such a crappy situation. In truth, however, all those little aches, or even those humongous pains you might feel that you think are breaking you down are, in fact, building you up, making you stronger, and making you a hell of a lot wiser.

What I will also say, although I've said it before, while pain is a fact of life in this sad and broken world, the other side of the coin is that there is always hope and things will always get better. I firmly believe that without a few troughs in life, the peaks that come after would be nowhere near as beautiful and satisfying and it's that contrast that makes life truly worthwhile. 

This has been a bit of a different post today, but just something I've been thinking about recently. Hope you're all doing well!