Everyone who undergoes severe trauma faces similar choices: to try to pick up the pieces of our lives and continue as before; or to stop and turn more intentionally toward healing, however that may appear in our lives. While we may not recognize it at the time of a traumatic event, life-changing suffering has a way of being an opening to a greater understanding of life.
The “mud” and mess of our most painful experiences can become the fertile ground for the blossoming of our understanding and self-compassion. This is a hard truth to accept if we are resolved to seeing a good life as consisting only of positive events. It is true that the cool waters of happiness are sweet and precious, but it is suffering that carves our cup.
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From Flowers in the Dark: Reclaiming Your Power to Heal from Trauma with Mindfulness by Sister Dang Nghiem © 2021. Reprinted with permission of Parallax Press.
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