Great sex, a wonderful meal, the best vacation – ever, the intense pain from a child’s death, the desire to drink and drug to cope DO NOT last forever.
All things end. All things stop. All things conclude. All things resolve.
We crazy humans say that good things, like an awesome vacation or dinner date NEVER last forever and that bad things happens ALL OF THE TIME and NEVER END. We humans are so black and white in our thinking sometimes.
Neither of the above and overused cathartic statements uttered by grievers and healers, obviously, is true. In fact, both statements are false. VERY FALSE.
When I am overwhelmed with pain and/or panic, I remind myself that even the greatest of natural storms: hurricanes, tsunamis, tornadoes and so on – eventually die out, stop destroying, run out of energy and end. The sun comes out. Life resumes. Clean-up commences. Healing starts.
Life storms (a.k.a. crises) do the same. They wreak havoc then end. They destroy then move-on and out of our lives. My life storms (addiction, death of children, homelessness) did not last forever. They eventually ended. These storms died out. Then, I came out of my place of safety, surveyed the damage, and started to heal. I began the clean-up process and started to mend what was broken. Even the things I do to heal support groups, AA home groups, my education, jobs, speaking engagements, radio shows DO NOT LAST FOREVER. Life storms and healing are temporary and lead to the next healing adventure and the next adventure after that.
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