The Pain Collector - Flash 4.2
Pain collection? This was getting weird. Before I could come up with a better question than, “What?†she began to explain.
“It started as a symbolic thing. One of my clients was having trouble letting go of the past. We’d figured out what was at the root of a lot of his troubles, but just knowing wasn’t much help. Not as long as he kept dwelling on it. He was an arty type. Kept seeing symbolism in everyday events. So I came up with a way of using that tendency to help him.â€
She pulled open a drawer. Pinned into it were a couple of dozen strips of paper, their ends folded in to the middle.
“I said he should write down a brief description of the heart of the problem, then pin it down and leave it behind. He liked that idea – I thought he would – and it did seem to help. A little later I tried the same technique with someone else, and it worked again. And again, and again. Until when I was clearing out at the end of the year, I found that I’d got more than twenty of these bits of paper. I could have just destroyed them, but… Sometimes it just gets you down, hearing what’s wrong with people’s lives all day long. And these were a reminder of the good side of the work. Of the people I’d helped, the things put right. So I decided to hang on to them, to inspire me when things were going badly. And over the years, the collection kept growing…â€
She turned and looked out of the window. “So that’s my big secret.â€
January 19th, 2006 at 6:50 pm
It is so difficult to get in touch with the source of our pain because it often stems from childhood or from situations that we are mentally blocking because they are painful. But when you cannot move forward in your life because you are paralyzed by pain or fear, life becomes an empty void that you hover in or float through. The true meaning and reason for life is growth of the spirit/soul. Not finding the source of our pain stunts that growth. It is scary because when you realize how you’ve been living or who you’ve become, if you are truly serious about healing that pain, you have to do something about it. This is the hard part because that void we’ve been dwelling in, has become a comfort zone protecting us from our own demons. We know instictively we’re hiding from something, but when we realize what it really is, can we find the courage to come out and face it. In the end, when it’s all said and done, hopefully the majority of us find the courage. But for those of us, who remain paralyzed and prefer instead to dwell in the void, realize that the very thing your hiding from is consuming you anyway. If you really want to live again, come out of the dark and embrace the light.
March 7th, 2006 at 7:43 pm
embrace in the light - keep faith
February 28th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I have been trying to find the source of my fear and seems so elusive. I wonder sometimes if “it” is just something I have made up as an excuse to do nothing.