“Ever so quietly, I walked around with the loudest heartbreak and I wondered how passers-by could not hear the bombs dropping; could not hear thunder; did not notice the catastrophe.” – Choë Frayne
There are some of us so good, so practiced, so skilled at holding all the pain inside – that no one can see the suffering.
Perhaps we learned this because there was no one interested in responding to our tears or no one strong enough to handle what hurt us.
With no one to hold us, we learned to hold it in – to show up – to keep going regardless of, as the poet writes, the “catastrophe” inside.
What a gift to find someone who notices anyway, who asks, who sees the pain behind our eyes and makes it safe enough that we can allow the tears to surface.
Not everyone will resonate with this learned pattern of coping by constriction. But for those who do, where is it okay to let what hurts be seen? With whom (person or animal) can you stop – at least for a moment – holding it all in?
Thank you to Chloë Frayne for the beautiful original post.