The title of this post is a quote from Martha Beck’s Wild New World. When I read it, I paused to consider whether I could answer her question honestly.
“Without deep suffering, menders can’t possibly help the people who will later look into their eyes and ask, ‘Can I really be happy after living through this hell?'”
It paused me and kept me thinking on the back burner for days. It’s one of the first most important questions I had to ask myself before sitting to write any more pieces of my own book, Truthfairy Field Guide: No Guru Required. One of the other most important questions I had to ask myself was whether or not my life’s work would become yet another undocumented, sad loss if I were to die today having not finished it and then set it free into the world for whoever might need it most.
The biggest question I’ve ever asked myself is whether or not my survival–my skidding and sliding through life sometimes with skinned knees and burned skin, broken-hearted, grabbing on, while refusing to surrender my sanity, my identity, my dignity, and my right to be here, refusing to have my spirit broken–I continued to ask myself if any of it will matter at all.
Every time I have wondered, the answer has always been,
Absolutely, yes.
Every. Single. Time.
If you’re struggling to find your own answers right now, that means the sun is beginning to rise again.
Be fair to yourself.
Breathe deeply, and answer yourself with compassion–even if it’s only with one word.
