Coffee Stains: Healing is Cyclical
the rather large and noticeable [coffee?] stain strewn across the driver side of my car finally made me annoyed enough to do something about it.
I mean, I DID try to clean it off. I spent twelve good dollars and a handful of faith on a car wash that didn't deliver. I guess the southern heat that started to set in around the time I acquired the mysterious Miami road-trip [coffee?] stain had LITERALLY stained the exterior of my car. (Also, I'm wondering who the f*ck did I piss off enough for them to throw coffee on my car?!?)
Why didn't I deal with the stain as soon as I saw it? I could provide a myriad of excuses on why I didn't face the [again, coffee??] stain music but that's all they would be, excuses.
The biggest sh*t of my life hit the fan not too long after the stain discovery and the stain didn't quite make the priority list cut. So when the seas calmed and I had enough balance and energy to deal with it, it didn't take me long to realize that it was going to take a little more than some high pressurized water (and twelve good dollars) to clean it off.
I had to scrub, vigorously, with more than just some water (but mostly water, thank God) to rid Kali of this stain. And in these moments, bent over, covered in cleaner, hot and sweaty using every bit of elbow grease I had, I realized cleaning this stain was a metaphor for what Life had been trying to show me.
I had been bypassing some serious steps of my healing thinking I could wash the pain away with some water and I'd be alright. This wasn't intentional, I wasn't trying to cut corners -- I truly thought I was working through what needed to be worked through. But just like cultivating negative habits is repetitive, so too is reprogramming and healing.
Major transformations form from the small moments, the baby steps. Healing is not a one and done type deal. We are constantly evolving. And just like the [okay, we're gonna go with coffee] stain, it's going to take more than a couple washes to keep the momentum of healing moving and to maintain a clear and safe space for your to stretch wider.
It sounds cliche, but if we want something badly enough, we'll do what we have to do to get it. The motivation may not find us immediately (and if you understand the ebb and flow of life, it certainly won't always stay), which is why we learn to apply self-discipline. We train ourselves to catch ourselves in moments where we want to take the comfortable path and instead, choose the opposite.
That coffee stain isn't the only part of my life that needed repetitious scrubbing, it was all the layers of myself I had addressed but did not follow up on. It was the little habits and thought patterns that snowballed into full blown unconscious actions and beliefs that weren't serving me anymore. All of these required my continuous breakdown and release. And still do.
Sometimes there is major frustration in healing that comes from being tested repeatedly on the same thing. We become angry/confused/annoyed that something we thought we'd gotten to the root of continues to show back up. But how can we strengthen new muscle if we don't repeatedly and consistently work out?
Repetitive lessons aren't punishment, they're reminders. God's giving us repeated opportunities to flex our new response skills to a particular situation, person or stimuli.
A marathon lasts longer than a spring. (S/O Nipsey - #TheMarathonContinues) Your healing journey will extend across seasons. From what I've experienced, true healing requires that we constantly scrub away at those layers that don't belong to us and never did. It might get a lil' dirty or maybe your process will be much more smooth. A particular internal conflict could find resolve in a few hours or it could take a few years - the fact remains that the cultivation must be consistent. Unlearning to relearn takes just as much time, energy and devotion as learning does.
Eventually, the coffee stains get washed away and all that's left is a very light, hardly noticeable imprint - a reminder that with continuous nurturing, watering and loving anything can bloom from the dirt.
