The Inconsolable

A friend of mine and I were talking about how common it is to try to talk ourselves out of things, or into things, or rationalize our way toward acceptance, tell the reasonable story, square things away with some sort of narrative hook, and yet, how rarely all of those exertions actually assuage another part of us that is not inclined to listen to "reason," is not assuaged, and remains deeply wounded by certain events. 

For example, imagine there's a situation in which your heart is fully on the line regarding another human being, and, "for practical reasons," the two of you just "can't be together." It's easy to start that machine of listing and cataloging all of the "reasons," many of which might, in fact, be incredibly compelling, quite real, not even rationalizations. The experience is not likely to be much of a way to mend the heartbreak of loss or the sorrow of disappointment, no matter how compelling the reasons may be. 

There's something like an inconsolable child, or emotional animal, "inside" of us that refuses to accept all of the narrative, reasons, stories, explanations, and "yes buts." No matter how obviously, practically true all of it is. The fact remains, for example, that we were not enough to be chosen. Someone else or something else was chosen instead of us. We were not enough. 

It's easier in some ways, sometimes, when we head forward thinking we are the ones who have made the choice. There's little heart satisfaction in it, a lot of the time, but at least there's a feeling of combined rationality and power. "We were just star crossed, and that's that." Its been true for me, though, that there's still the "soft animal that loves what it loves" left behind, ignored, shushed, "reasoned with," placated, but still inconsolable. "The heart" wants what it wants, we sometimes realize. Reason, reasons, be damned. 

This operates in an energetic way, reason and rationality be damned. My friend was expressing having these feelings around someone who died, who "chose death" over her. Obviously not a rational or even reasonable narrative. But her honest feelings, nonetheless. She felt somewhere "deep inside" that she was not enough to keep her lover here, that her lover's soul didn't want her, but wanted death instead. 

Since we're capable of these odd, probably usually secret, irrational miseries, it seems interesting that we ourselves and most of the people around us are going to try to "talk us out of it." You can probably immediately hear your own or others' phrases, all of those attempts to placate, to "reason with," to console. 

My experience the past year or so has been that the only things that console me are going toward the irrationality of it, not trying to go away from it. Connecting with the hurt and loss, not trying to deny its reality or talk myself out of it. Talking myself out of it plays a valuable, functional role in my being able to show up for necessary life, and there's a value to the narrative, for sure. But the real healing is on a cellular, blood and guts, balls and breath level. It feels like it moves a lot more in the body than in the mind, that's for sure.