The wonderful thing about having years of experience under your belt, is all of the influences and people who have made strong impressions on your life. One piece of advice that I got back in my twenties has stuck with me my entire life and I have passed it on to many people myself since then. At the time I got the advice, I belonged to a Mommies group of very wise women who, though we have scattered in many directions throughout the years, I will never forget their influence and kindness in the beginning years of my parenting adventures and mishaps.
The day I got the sacred advice, I was sitting in my friend’s kitchen as our children were all interacting with each other and toy cars and legos and cartoons. I was lamenting dramatically about a problem that must have been relatively minor, since to this day, I honestly can’t even remember what that problem was about. Mid-sentence into my dramatics, it occurred to me that my problem was almost irrelevant compared to what my friend had been going through. After having her first child, trying for a second child had ended in endless miscarriages and several failed, expensive IVF treatments. The situation was taking a huge toll on her body, her marriage and her very outlook on life. She and her husband had recently decided to stop trying again for another baby. “I’m so sorry!” I said to my friend, full of guilt and shame. “What I’m going through is nothing compared to what you are experiencing.” She grabbed my hand and said, “Just because someone is having a heart attack next to you, doesn’t mean that your broken toe doesn’t hurt.”
Now my third son recently broke his actual toe to the the point that he needed to have it operated on, so I can attest that yes, broken toes are indeed very painful. While it is often necessary to look at horribly sad situations that people are going through, to keep your own problems in perspective, it is not good to diminish or dismiss your own very real feelings about your own very real experiences. It is not possible to have compassion and true empathy for others’ blights, if you haven’t allowed yourself to feel and experience the kinds of sadness, loneliness and fears that people go through when they are having a tough time of it. When people go through the tragedies in life, who besides God, do they often turn to for hope and direction? Usually, the most helpful people are people who can relate. Support groups of people who have experienced the same similar adversity and have shown that it is possible to come through to the other side of the pain, are usually the greatest inspiration to people trying to put the pieces of their own lives back together.
We’re not meant to go through this thing called Life alone. If we were, this blog wouldn’t even exist. When I read others’ blogs and books and listen to others’ stories, it fills me with the sense of, “Oh yes, I can relate to that.” or “Oh good, someone else sees this the same way I do.” or “Oh wow, I never looked at it that way. That’s helpful.” At the very least it’s, “Hmmmm, interesting.” I’m grateful that the downsides of my life experience have mostly been more of the “broken toe” variety, but I’m also grateful that I can share my “broken toe” experiences with people who are travelling with me. I honestly and fully feel it all, and thus, I deeply understand.
