When we reach reflexively for something to dull an ache inside of us, in that very moment of reaching, we are hiding from our pain. We're storing it away. Tamping it down.
Interpretation
Avoiding emotional pain often leads to temporary solutions rather than healing.
Dani Shapiro's quote reflects on the human tendency to seek out distractions or numbing mechanisms whenever we experience emotional discomfort. Instead of confronting our pain and allowing ourselves to feel it, we might instinctively reach for external solutions that only suppress our true feelings, ultimately hindering genuine healing and self-awareness.
In practice
In a therapy session when discussing coping mechanisms for emotional pain.
The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime.
Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the page, then the shaping, the pencil on the page, breathing, slowing down, being willing–no, more than willing, being wide open–to press the bruise until it blossoms.
Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page - but rather, will assume that she's getting it right without the struggle.
I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.
Through meditation one has to achieve a dreamless sleep with full alertness. Once this happens, the drop falls into the ocean and becomes the ocean.
If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.
Do not be afraid to experience your emotions; they are the path to your soul. Emotions erupt to remind us we are alive, that we are human. And to let us know we are growing. Trust yourself enough to feel what you feel.
In order to see, you have to stop being in the middle of the picture
Only make decisions that support your self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth.
Those who are ashamed of what they ought not to be ashamed; and are not ashamed of what they ought to be - such men, embracing erroneous views, enter the woeful path.
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