The Cost of Meditating on Pain
Cleaning has always been one of my most implemented coping strategies. It has a way of mitigating large amounts of anxiety and requires little thought to achieve. However, a few years ago I became aware that I was coupling this task with a secondary stress relieving action, and the two in tandem were not yielding fruitful results. The moment I would settle into the groove of scrubbing and sweeping I would begin recreationally arguing with people in my head. Initially, I think I thought I was processing the pain, embarrassment, or offense these people had caused me, but that wasn’t what I was doing at all.
I wasn’t processing pain; I was meditating on it, and I was doing it quite obsessively.
I would focus on what was done to me or said to me and I would argue with that person until I found a way to hurt them in the same way. In my mind, these people needed a taste of their own medicine, and I was ready to pack a punch with each squirt of Windex I applied to every inch of glass in my home. The way I saw it, their actions towards me granted me the permission to offer them a reality check that told them who they REALLY were, and insurance that made sure they would think twice about ever hurting me, or someone I love, again.
It was an ugly blood bath of mentally curated obscenities, and by the time I had the entire house cleaned, I would be ten times more amped and frustrated than when I began.
One day, I had just finished feeding hay and I was eager to dive straight into “housework” as soon as I got home, but the justified sulking just couldn’t wait any longer. As I pulled out of the pasture gate, I began the usual; “if she ever says…I will let her know…and when she says…I will just…” Then out of know where I felt the following words ring through my spirit, “You know I wouldn’t choose you right?” I threw the truck in park, and further assessed the origin of the words. They felt peaceful, but surely couldn’t be true. As I let the confusion settle, I decided to seek further clarification; “Choose me for what?” With absolutely no ounce of judgment in the response, I felt God say, “I wouldn’t choose you to speak into her life when you clearly don’t love her like I do.” At that, I gently laid my head on the steering wheel and started to cry. My few tears eventually turned to sobs as the reality of His words hit me to my core. I think THIS was what processing felt like, and I quickly understood why I had avoided it for so long. I knew in my spirit He was extending grace to her journey just as He would extend grace to mine if it were someone else, and the only thing I could think to say was “Well, damn it God, that is going to be really really hard.” (While I wish eloquence was in my repertoire at the time, the story went how it went.)
This moment changed my life, and I hope it continues to do so for the rest of my time here on earth. There’s a lot about this story that is hard to understand, and it’s taken me years to unpack, process, learn, forgive, and identify what love truly means for each situation, as it has yet to be the same response for each relationship in my life. Some of these people I was arguing with in my mind had very legitimately hurt me. Most of my frustrations were very justified opportunities for hate and resentment. The problem with choosing to meditate on those things was that the state of my mind was not well. Resentment was consuming my life beyond the relationships that caused me pain, and it was beginning to become difficult to compartmentalize it all any longer. Learning to love others was ultimately a call to learn to love myself, and I was right about one thing; it was and is really really hard.