Dear Jasmine #21: On Hurting and Healing

"We come to grief not to be marred by it but to know how to love better, more mindfully."

Artwork by Ramon Casas

Question 21

Dear Jasmine,

How to distract yourself from a festering wound inflicted by your own impulsive ways? 
— Babbling Brook

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Answer 21: On Hurting and Healing

Dear Babbling Brook,

So it goes that our hurt can be felt, but I wonder if hurt also manifests into our sense of smell. Joy can smell like a loaf of cake from a neighbourhood bakery. Love can smell like the patchouli perfume on an old t-shirt. Happiness can smell like the onset of rain in the air. Much the same way, what does hurt smell like? I spent time wondering about this and making notes while I thought about you, Babbling Brook. And I think that hurt must smell like something old, nay, something ancient. Perhaps it smells like the inside of an overgrown forest; misty and bitter. Or it smells like the remains of stardust, if only we could hold it in our palm. I suppose that hurt smells like something archaic because it transcends time and traverses generations. Hurting is universal, age-old, and it has been here for longer than we have. We might love and feel joy differently, but we all hurt the same.

You can moon over your sorrow; refuse to indulge in it; turn it into emotional eating, doom scrolling, or disappearing text messages; escape it by mutating it into a high-performing habit; transform it into a piece of art; but you cannot leave it like petty cash on the coffee shop table or throw it into the garbage like a half-eaten apple. Your sorrow will stay with you no matter where you go, and it will beg you to pay attention to it.

Once upon a time, I wrote a story about a couple who escaped to the farthest fields of the planet, but they had to take their pain with them, which they planted into flowers. The half-life of sorrow is different for each one of us, but unfortunately no one knows what it is. You have to feel your feelings, cry your eyes out, and then release it from your body like releasing doves into the sky. Most emotions meander inside our body waiting for us to acknowledge them and then send them on their way. Sorrow is no different, Babbling Brook. So, I apologise, I will not be able to show you how to distract yourself from your wounds. I have to ask you to tend to them, because what else do we do with wounds in the first place, my sweet almond?

I know that your emotional health right now is an unravelling tapestry, and maybe nothing makes sense. The impulse doesn’t make sense. The confusion doesn’t make sense. But I am here to tell you it is going to be okay. Your days might feel like they are drenched in the sea of melancholia, but do you know what also resides under that sea? A whole civilisation of the water that pays attention to your beating heart. And water, my dearest, has memory. You are a mosaic of experiences and emotions, and your sorrow like pouring rain falls on the ground where you built your heart a home. Let it rain. Stay still for some time. Your body and your heart need the rest and the rain. Do not deny yourself the exhalation your body so desperately needs. Decompress your breath. Droop your shoulders. Hug your knees. Pay attention to the agony; it is but a passing ship stuck inside your stormy heart. The storm will subside, rain will dwindle, the sky will clear, and the ship will sail away. 

These days, when I sit at home without any devices, taking time to breathe mindfully, I can feel the beating of my heart slowing down. I can feel it wanting to come home as if it has been running all day (or even week) and it needs a soft, white pillow to rest. I follow that feeling and do whatever is necessary for my heart to feel it is safe with me. Follow your body, sweet almond. Where is the wound pulsating in your body? What does it say? Those parts of your body need physical comfort, rest, and release. Whether it is exercise, oil massages, cathartic weeping, vigorous cardio, deep breathing, dancing, yoga, or even screaming. Do what you can to provide. Then, ask your wound, what is it trying to teach you about your own emotional needs? About self-preservation? About courage? Those emotional parts of you need affirmation and light. I truly believe that starlight, rainwater, and self-love are balms to our wounds. We come to grief not to be marred by it but to know how to love better, more mindfully. So love your wounds, Babbling Brook. They don’t need your neglect. They need your attention. Love yourself. Be there for you. 

You might want an escape, a distraction, but the antidote to hurt is not conservation of the self. Our hurt is only one-half of a whole. The other day someone asked me what is the opposite of hurt, Jasmine? And I immediately said that the opposite of hurt is healing. It is cure. It is renewal. Given how intricate the web of human emotion is, the overlap of feelings is natural, the complementing of two emotions is expected, and the mingling of many emotions to resemble a ball of kaleidoscopic confusion is the puzzle that abounds our days. Where is the feeling coming from? From what part of our consciousness or sub-conscience stems a particular mental state? These questions are not for interrogating the self, but to get to know the person we spend most time with — ourselves. 

You used the word ‘fester’ Babbling Brook, and here’s a little inquiry to that end. What do we need to do to let wounds fester? We need to only withhold cure, we need to neglect them. And how has neglect ever helped any injury, do you know? It almost always makes it worse. I care for you, your fabric of human sentiments, your corporeal existence, so I want you to turn away from neglect and move towards nursing and care. You’re not just requesting a distraction from anguish, you’re unwittingly drawing away from kindness. Like I said, our feelings don’t exist in isolation. It’s a jumbled mess, yes, but you can’t sidestep it, or leave it lying on the chair. Even if you did, it will nag you at the back of your mind. And what good will come from that?  

Every time I reach into my own heart to be kind to someone else, I have noticed that my entire being becomes aware of what tenderness is possible, what comfort can exist, and what softness feels like. My mind reconstitutes and re-learns everything I know about the generosity of the human spirit. While my kindness might help someone else, mostly it helps me learn what softness the human heart is capable of. In a world overflowing with discomfort and difficulty, it reminds me that compassion and gentleness are closer than one thinks. It makes living less burdensome. It reassures me that if suffering exists, so does healing, so does grace. And I tend to believe what I see, what I feel. Try to be kind to yourself, sweet almond. Be kind to someone else in the process. Feel all the tenderness it makes you feel. Be vulnerable to the benevolence of your own human heart. 

Healing requires us to reckon with our humanity, it also requires us to reckon with courage. Make changes in your life that you’ve been putting off for long. You don’t need to throw your whole life aboard. You only need to change the small things you know in your heart that need changing. Call upon courage to keep yourself from bumping into the same wounding element again and again. You can’t start a process of healing while still knocking yourself in the same place.

We heal by shining light on our wounds, applying salves, and beckoning our courage to do better, to do differently. We heal by deciding to enter into our own sanctuary, one we have built with the knowledge of what our body and mind needs. Where there has been hurt, there must be healing. You’re going to need your sanctuary not just for the present, but also for the past and the future. You cannot escape suffering. But you also cannot escape your own inner oasis. Accept all parts of you, Babbling Brook, wrecked and radiant. Your pain is a gift. A terrible gift, but a gift nonetheless. Open it. 

Love,
Jasmine

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Dear Jasmine is a monthly column by an anonymous writer. If any of you want to send in questions, please send them to Jasmine here.