“We live in times when the call to full and critically aware citizenship could not be more urgent. We need to rediscover the careless courage, yet devastating simplicity, of the little boy who, in the middle of the numbed multitude, in naïve Socratic fashion, blurts out: ‘But the emperor has no clothes.’ When spoken, the word of truth can bring down citadels of falsity.” ~ John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings
Healing is more than uncovering and feeling old pains lost in our bodies. Healing demands something else, something that can take even more courage: Questioning and acting…
Questioning that invites us to brave the unknown.
Questioning the old, entrenched, outdated agreements we’ve made with others, and ourselves. Ones that keep our hearts concealed, hidden from the painful truth, pain we cannot bear, dare not feel, but keep us acting, playing our parts in agreeable ways.
Questioning that leads us to the difficult conversations we’ve avoided, speaking up in ways we were taught not to, dare we rock the boat of convenience, of collusion, of being good and pleasing, dare we choose to no longer hide in relationships.
Questioning so that we come to finally see how little joy there has been in fitting in, in wasting away in approval, in hiding in tending to everyone else but the concealed, crying heart.
Questioning that summons us to see things as they are, not as we’d like them to be, a radical honesty that confronts our precious answers, what we and most others have long placed on the alter of legitimacy, the constructs and ethos, the building blocks of inner and outer architecture, when tossed high in the air into the light of truth we see the shadows for the first time, dark shadows we’ve unknowingly, all these years, made our home.
Indeed, healing is more than feeling. It’s about seeing and acting. It’s about braving the unknown waters, moving deeper into the heart of truth, the heart of living.
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Check out Vince’s book: Wild Empty Spaces ~ Poems for the Opening Heart
