The Paradox of Opening to Pain
If something hurts us, we should avoid it, right? If you put your hand on a hot stove, it physically harms you, you experience pain, and you pull away instinctively. If someone is physically abusive in a relationship, the best course of action is likely to seek support and exit the relationship. It seems commonsense enough. But what happens when the pain we are trying to avoid is the internal kind? When it is psychological and emotional pain? So much of contemporary culture t