Entertained

"When every grief is entertained that's offered,

...

Dolor comes ... indeed"

(Dolor = great sorrow, distress)

Shakespeare, The Tempest 2.1.18-21

One word. Just one word, sometimes, when skillfully placed, can open the door to so much insight.
I love the quote above, and want to talk about the word "entertained", which holds so much meaning to me.

As many of us have noticed by now, as long as we're alive, grief will come. There is no choice in that. In one form or another, life will challenge us with difficulty.

But the question is, how do we meet our griefs when they do come? There is a big difference between accepting that grief is part of life, versus "entertaining" every grief that comes our way. As Shakespeare says, our dolor, or suffering, grows in relation to how much we entertain our griefs.

When grief comes, I don't believe we should shut it out. I don't believe that we should pretend it's not there, numb ourselves against it, try to turn it into something else, etc. Acknowledging and calling things by their right name are important, otherwise we risk deceiving ourselves and others, and causing more problems for everyone in the future.

Yet, acknowledging what's happening and what we're feeling is very different from "entertaining" all our griefs. To me, the main difference is that once we start "entertaining", we gradually become engulfed by what's going on inside us, and the side stories that we tell ourselves, to the point that sometimes we lose sight of everything else.

I have experienced what it feels like to "entertain" my griefs. I have experienced the self absorption and loneliness that come along with that. On a few occasions, I have also experienced what it feels like to acknowledge and accept, and then move on. The difference is significant: one feels like you're drowning, the other feels strangely freeing. One thing I want to make clear is that to me, accepting does not mean that I like what happened, or that I will not try to improve the situation. It simply means allowing it to be as is without making more pain out of it by spinning all kinds of scenarios and conclusions about it in my head.

Like most people, I suspect, I am a master entertainer of griefs. But one thing I am grateful for is having had the experience, just those handful of times, of what it feels like not to "entertain". Because now that I know the difference, I have something to practice, something to move towards, which I know is possible, even when it feels so hard.

Peace