Wounds

I'm reading Geneen Roth's Breaking Free of Emotional Eating and she's giving me a lot to think about.  At the time of the year when there's a special day set aside for being grateful, I am grateful for the people who write books and the publishers who publish them so that I can learn about myself and the world.  I am reading a part of the book where she discusses the effect of "stuffing" our negative emotions (phrase borrowed from the program).  "None of us lacks for wounds," she says.  "Born of imperfect parents, sheathed in bodies that get ill and grow old, we are always subject to the aggressions and torment of others.  We all have our stories."  Instead of paying attention to our wounds and facing them, we try to run away by numbing ourselves with chemicals, food, gambling, sex, and/or self-righteousness.  The running away process causes us to project our pain outward causing us to hate and hurt others who are already hurting from their own wounds.  Profound. 

"Everyone gets abandoned, everyone... We all have to live through the feeling of having nothing left when people we love walk out, or move away or die."  So, what's the answer?  Live through it.  Love through it.  Learn through it.  Grow from it.  Understand that we can be transformed from it.