Fr Jim Cogley
In order to heal we need to remember. We can’t afford to block things out, the consequences to our health and well-being are too great. Talking is the first step but feeling is the next and without feeling there is no healing. We usually try to avoid everything that is painful in a myriad of different ways. We get busy, pick up our phone, call a friend, comfort eat, or drink too much. Many will seek medication to numb the intensity of the pain. In so doing we are simply repressing our feelings and thus ensuring that they will persist. It is only by befriending those difficult emotions that they will change to something positive. Sadness will give birth to compassion; loneliness to solitude. Even the troublesome emotion of anger will give way to creativity. The secret is to practice inner hospitality and sit with that difficult feeling, without becoming identified with it, long enough for it to reveal its positive side.