Coping with the unfairness of life.

Today, I was reminded of a wonderful piece of writing called “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Someone at my work place brought it to my attention. I read this piece years ago and reading and hearing it again strengthened me. Here is an extract from it that particularly touches me ……

“It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have been touched by the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain! I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it, or fix it.

Each time I go through a time when I have felt betrayed by somebody or by life itself, I am faced with the same challenge. Do I  allow myself to become bitter, cynical and shut my heart down to love, to people and to life? Do I live with an impoverished spirit because of my hurt and my pain?  Do I choose to keep my heart open and live my life from a place of love and generosity? It is a choice each time. How often I have wrestled with the sorrow and the emotional pain, and felt so tempted to give up on hope. Right now in the aftermath of a relationship break-up, I am wrestling with despair and heart-ache and the choice to close my heart down.

Yet, I move to the place of choosing to keep my heart open, because that is value I wish to live by. What strengthens me to do this also, are friends who can lovingly sit with my pain and bear it with me. They don’t try to hide it, discount it or fix it.

I choose to be the kind of person I want to be, even in the midst of the unfairness of life.

I wonder how you struggle with these dilemmas, when life is not fair ……