Coping with the Unfairness of Life.

Today, I recalled a beautiful piece of writing, “The Invitation” by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Someone at my workplace reminded me of it. I had read the piece years ago and re-reading and hearing it again strengthened me. Here is an extract that particularly touches me.

“It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if the centre of your sorrow has touched you 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 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 breakup, I am wrestling with despair and heartache and the choice to close my heart down.

I move to the place of choosing to keep my heart open because that is the 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 amid the unfairness of life.

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