Time and Grace
“Some conflicts do not respond to addressing or processing. Only time and grace can heal them. Similarly, heroic journeys often begin with a situation that has no solution. Such difficult situations are meant to deflate the ego’s belief that it can solve all life’s problems by its own will power and without relying on grace. In all of us there is something that does and something that lets. To become fully human, we need to honor both of these.” How to Be an Adult in Relationships, David Richo
Let’s talk about this for a minute, because if you’re like me, you read this and immediately feel a little irritated with Mr. David Richo. But the man is dispensing some very helpful truth here, if I can get past my own ego long enough to receive it. Time and grace. The time and grace it takes my own delicate psyche and wounded neurology to heal from past hurts. The time and grace it takes the people I love to heal from their own, while I patiently abide and care for us the best I can. Some things are so painful, I just want them resolved right now. I don’t want this to hurt anymore and I don’t want to watch someone else hurt anymore either. It’s been addressed and processed to the greatest extent it can be processed, and now we wait.
Addressing a hurt means speaking it out loud. That’s its own challenge, saying what you mean and not saying it mean. Processing is bringing to consciousness the ego defenses I am engaging in during a conflict. Am I avoiding the conflict, because that’s what good girls do? Am I projecting my own immature behavior onto you and believing YOU are the problem, when really I’m struggling to contain myself? Am I afraid a friend or partner cannot handle my hurt and just too scared to admit something so vulnerable? Am I having to face that I am, in fact, selfish in this moment or childish or stubbornly refusing to see myself as a whole person who is both gifted and flawed, rather than a perfect person with no flaws?
And after the storm of addressing and processing, there is the quiet lull that is time and grace. There is the residual after conflicts with people we love. The hurtful things that were said. The true things that were said. The pain in you that I cannot fix. I can only trust in time and grace to carry you. The grief still sloshing around in me that is my own responsibility and in need of time and grace to heal me. David Richo says this is an inner power, letting. I believe, particularly in our western culture, that we celebrate our power of doing, charging forward, addressing, and resolving; and it is its own legitimate and necessary power. Where many of us struggle is in the letting. Letting a hard thing be a hard thing. I struggle with my own shadows and wounds. I am doing the best I can today. I will try to take responsibility for myself, care for me, give myself loving boundaries and respect yours, then I let myself be a woman who struggles. That is love. That is some real grown-up, full-of-grace love. You struggle too and I can’t do one damned thing about it but let you. I will not force you to rush. I will not manipulate you into changing right now, so I can feel better. I will not punish you for struggling or shame you for things you cannot help. I will manage myself, so you don’t have to. I will let you struggle today too.
There is balance in both the doing and the letting, and today I am grateful for the sweet gifts of time and grace that support me in getting there. May we be humble enough to acknowledge we need these gifts. May we receive them whole-heartedly. May we extend them to others in their struggles.