How would you describe an itch, specifically, your post-divorce itch? It may be a combination of pain, anger and hurt, with some other emotions tossed in. Perhaps there’s relief with a dose of guilt. It may have happened a week ago, or maybe 5 years ago. The itch can still be there.
Uncomfortable emotions are like an itch we feel we must scratch. It’s hard to ignore an itch. The irony about an itch is, the more you scratch, the more it itches. What we really want to do is learn to live with the discomfort post-divorce, and learn from it. Like the itch from a bite, the more you let it be, the quicker it heals.
PemaChödrön says, scratching is our habitual way of trying to get away, trying to escape our fundamental discomfort, the fundamental itch of restlessness and insecurity, or that very uneasy feeling: that feeling that something bad is about to happen.
Newness and change often bring that feeling of impending doom and the dread that goes along with it. Again, Pema Chödrön:
By learning to stay, we become very familiar with this place, and gradually, gradually, it loses its threat… abiding with the uneasy, disquieting sensation of nowhere-to-run [we find] that—guess what?—we don’t die; we don’t collapse. In fact, we feel profound relief and freedom.
The best part of change is in the opportunities it presents. Once you are able to life with the discomfort, and you haven’t died or gone crazy, what now? That’s the fun part. How would you like to create the rest of your life?
Nobody said it was easy
Oh it’s such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
TheScientist, Coldplay
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