Embrace Your Fragility: Reveal Your Strength

THE feeling of being loved by another, of having a price in the eyes of another human person is so soothing and uplifting. Our success in life may depend on this... on the fact that we have someone to work for, to make life living for. This feeling infuses a new wave of energy in us. As blinding as it might be, it also has its light.

That explains why the ache of a broken heart could be acute, painful and far-reaching. The pain of a broken heart could be very difficult to heal especially if we do not accept it. I have been thinking about this for sometime. Someone shared to me the story of betrayal. She was bleeding. Her only love was cheating on her, making out with her best friend.

I did not know how to react to this. I know that every relationship is unique. The rules we imagine are always fake. Our models are fake. Our icon of love are fake. The only truth that defines a relationship is the dynamics of two unique hearts interacting, meeting, touching each other in their unique way. How could I therefore pretend to offer some help where I was a stranger. Yes, I will always remain a stranger to your pain. To anyone's pain. I will always be a stranger to another's wounds, they are sacred wounds, by approaching them, I am approaching a sort of sanctuary... I can only incline humbly, I can soothe it with silence, with a presence, with words, but I will never understand it. It may resemble a pain I have known, but it sure is definitely unique.

Well, this is what I told my friend: "That you are hurt. I am most certain about it. That you are losing the one and only person who has value before your eyes is nothing I can doubt. Yes you are suffering... sure that you are. But there is something you can't afford to lose. There is one thing you possess, which no one could ever take away from you, when you give it, it is out of freedom... out of an inner liberty that makes you what you really are. This thing is the gift that is you. You are your own gift, you are the only gift you can offer the world. However hurting, however flawed you may feel you are... you are precious. Can you learn to embrace yourself? Can you learn to touch your own wounds and to draw healing from them? One way is by accepting the fact that you are hurt, and then treating yourself with a little care, with some respect. It would worth nothing if you have value before others yet lacking this sense of dignity that makes you lift your head even if you are hurting deeply."

She smiled. And I dared say no more. I watched her in silence plunging into the depths of her tears. Yes, she was embracing her own pain. It is healing.