Through It

This morning my daughter had a melt down over something I perceived to be minor, but in her mind it was huge. Mount Everest huge. I didn’t understand why something outside of her control and trivial (to me) caused her to have a teen-angst fueled temper tantrum. But while trying to acknowledge her disappointment, comfort her and redirect her energy she said to me “Don’t try to make it better. Just let me feel it.” That statement was profound to me. She didn’t want to band-aid it or act like she wasn’t upset. She didn’t try to avoid it. She was willing to go through it.

Yea, I suck at that. I don’t want to feel anything negative. I prefer to work, to do, to avoid. I prefer to ignore pain and pretend as if it wasn’t there. At the first inkling of pain I tend to hop to the healing and skip over the actual feel-the-pain portion. But my teen knows that healing is impossible without processing the pain. You have to go through it.