Dinty Moore’s got nothing on me.  When I want to stew in my sorrow, I pull out all the stops!  I just sat here and thought of everything that’s gone wrong in my life.  Counted it off like the opposite of rosary beads.  Like misery beads.  Then I wondered why I felt physically drained as I sat all hunched over.

And a strange, sweet thought came to me.

The answer is “Yes.”

There’s never anything positive in re-hashing the moments that bring pain.  I believe closure is a myth and catharsis is a euphemism for “picking at scabs.”  You start to go back in your mind and before you know it, you feel physically the way you did at that moment in time.  You’re re-living it, so that wound never has a chance to become a scar.  You haven’t left the nexus of pain yet.

In a recent prayer, I wrote about feeling “wet with woe,” and it wasn’t just a poetic flourish.  I truly did feel drenched with the sticky glop of melancholy.  Can’t explain it well, but it wasn’t just psychological; it extended to the physical.  I felt wet, weighted.  Woeful.

And it was a bad place to be.

Many people believe you need to talk about troubles in order to face up to them and find a solution.  In some cases, this is true.  But for things too painful to even think about, the answer isn’t in re-visiting them but in moving ahead in spite of them.

The nexus of pain is the “no.”  The “yes” is the part where you divert yourself from full-focus on the “ouch” and set about building the foundation for the rest of your life.  You can’t live in a state of suspended animation, frozen in one moment that caused your heart to break or your soul to shatter.

The answer is yes.

Psychologists might not agree, but I think the way to turn the page on past pain is to indulge in distraction therapy.  I just made up that phrase, but I think you get the drift.  Leave the room if you find yourself in a puddle of pathos.  Get up and go somewhere.  Sing praise songs. Take a drive in the country.

When you sit in a pile of pain, all you say to blessings waiting on your doorstep is, “No thanks.  I’m not ready.  I’m still lamenting the bad things that have happened so I have no room for you.”  Why not turn down another path?  Stow the “no,” get up out of your woe and open the door wide.  The answer is yes.