As I have mentioned
before in class and in other reflections there is something
unsettling to me about the commonly used notions of “coping” that
imply a “fixing” or “getting over” suffering. Other
reflections brought to light ideas of forgiveness in terms of love
and understanding which I feel are much truer to what we mean when we
say “cope.” I would be inclined to take the same approach
towards “healing.” There is not necessarily a coming clean,
making peace with, or closure of suffering, but an acknowledgement of
ownership that our suffering is now part of our lives and we continue
(if you're reading this then you are already doing so) not burdened
under the the guise of suffering, but in spite of it; ala Sisyphus.
In my personal
preference I don't think that healing is nearly as implicative of
“fixing” than coping. This may seem a strange paradox, but I
think a biological example may help illustrate the point. When our
body receives a superficial wound (a scratch or a bruise) we might
not notice it at first, however, left unattended it will fester. If
too much attention is paid to it, like picking a scab, the “wound”
persists. Taken to a different degree; severe injuries leave scars
once they heal. The wound or immediate danger (to the body) will
close and heal with the right precautions. However, a scar
remains... it serves as a reminder of the incident. I'd like to
think of psychological suffering in the same manner. That the scars
of our trauma and suffering serve as a persistence of memory. They
remind us that our “wounds” are part of us. Scars may “heal”
or disappear over time, but to an entirely different scale and degree
than the “bleeding” wound.
I've heard and used
the expression that “scars are just tattoos with better stories.”
However, this class has brought new light to that story. Not only
do physical scars represent a “chapter” of our lives, but our
psychological scars create the same kind of story-telling, an
integral part of our meaning-making process. I think that healing is
just that, a process. It is not a capstone or remedy, it is a
growing not after suffering has been resolved but growing with that
as part of our lives. We have talked before about about trauma be a
sudden shock to our worldview, lifestyle, or “dam.” Trying to
“get over” that shock is probably traumatic in its own right in
that we are constantly and intimately reminded of it.
Irvin Yalom uses an
analogy to title one of his books; “Staring at the Sun.” In the
book, the sun is used to represent our death (ironic and paradoxical
in its own right). Yalom emphasizes that without the sun we would
live in a world of darkness; similarly being reminded of our
mortality can serve as motivation to live a “fuller” life.
Conversely (as Yalom also writes) staring directly at the sun is
painful and can ultimately permanently blinding. In such a metaphor,
too much concentration on our own death can be crippling in a
neurotic disabling way. I'd like to think that the same metaphors
hold true when talking about suffering rather than death.
I don't know that I
can think of any specific poems or songs that reflect the concepts
I'm trying to convey; or perhaps there are too many. I can't think
of any that capture suffering's complexity in entirety, but there is
something (as we have also talked about) breathtakingly similar in
all of they, yet each is uniquely different and elicits a specific
“suffering.” However, if I had to pick one, the following comes
pretty close to capturing my above thoughts on suffering, scars, and
healing...
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