When we reach reflexively for something to dull an ache inside of us, in that very moment of reaching, we are hiding from our pain. We're storing it away. Tamping it down.
Interpretation
Avoiding emotional pain often leads to temporary solutions rather than healing.
Dani Shapiro's quote reflects on the human tendency to seek out distractions or numbing mechanisms whenever we experience emotional discomfort. Instead of confronting our pain and allowing ourselves to feel it, we might instinctively reach for external solutions that only suppress our true feelings, ultimately hindering genuine healing and self-awareness.
In practice
In a therapy session when discussing coping mechanisms for emotional pain.
The writing life requires courage, patience, persistence, empathy, openness, and the ability to deal with rejection. It requires the willingness to be alone with oneself. To be gentle with oneself. To look at the world without blinders on. To observe and withstand what one sees. To be disciplined, and at the same time, take risks. To be willing to fail - not just once, but again and again, over the course of a lifetime.
Writing well involves walking the path of most resistance. Sitting still, being patient, allowing the lunatic dream to take shape on the page, then the shaping, the pencil on the page, breathing, slowing down, being willing–no, more than willing, being wide open–to press the bruise until it blossoms.
Confidence is highly overrated when it comes to creating literature. A writer who is overly confident will not engage in the struggle to get it exactly right on the page - but rather, will assume that she's getting it right without the struggle.
I try to remember that the job - as well as the plight, and the unexpected joy - of the artist is to embrace uncertainty, to be sharpened and honed by it.
Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.
The gateways to wisdom and learning are always open, and more and more I am choosing to walk through them. Barriers, blocks, obstacles, and problems are personal teachers giving me the opportunity to move out of the past and into the Totality of Possibilities.
It is harder to avoid censure than to gain applause.
If you abandon the present moment, you cannot live the moments of your daily life deeply.
I got taught a lot of great lessons by superhero comics as a kid about virtue and self-sacrifice and responsibility. And those were an important part of imprinting my DNA with ethical and moral values.
None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.