"Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary"

Yes, feeling is a step in the right direction. Opening your heart will allow positive and negative emotions to flow. But, at some point you will have to allow someone close enough to help or lead. It is inevitable.

I remember reading Carolyn Myss and she told stories of people who maintained stoic independence and then they got sick or had misfortune and they had to reach out to others...to ask for assistance and support and love...to trust them to help. I am not predicting bad fortune for you...I am just saying that the Divine has lessons for us to learn and if we refuse to learn them in one manner an opportunity for the same lesson will present itself over and over until we have to surrender.

I found this on Pinterest. It struck me as being true.
The Buddha taught detachment as a relief for suffering which is universal.
Perhaps we need to detach from the nidus of the suffering that we are experiencing.
I am not sure if it is as simple as detaching from the relationships with those who started the suffering...
it can't be that easy.
I think it is a deeper place that needs to detach from the sense of entitlement to suffer because of what was done to us as innocent children.
I think it has to do with forgiveness of those who have deeply hurt us.
It also requires forgiveness of ourselves...
I still hold onto the idea that I could have stopped the abuse with just the courage to speak my truth.
I know we've been through all of this over and over, around the spiral again, but this time from a different vantage point.
Perhaps it is time to release the suffering...offer it up to the universe and focus energy on living.

I am so sorry that your son and daughter-in-law are having difficulties. Perhaps they would do better if they came back home. It is hard to say. What was their motivation for moving that far from home in the first place? Have they fulfilled that motivation? Maybe they were escaping from rather than moving towards something. It is just something to think about before they return...are they ready to come back home?

I believe that we moved frequently to escape from our shortcomings as a family...Dad's temper and drinking, Mom being overwhelmed, the abuse that spilled out into the community at times, attracting too much attention which made our family uncomfortable, financial instability.
I don't know...but to stay would have given outsiders a potential glimpse of our dysfunctional world.

I hope that you have enjoyed this beautiful weekend. It was a good weekend here, despite sitting outside in 55 degree misty-rain on Saturday morning for a 2 hour football game. I guess it wasn't so bad...Otherwise the weekend was good.

In the Light,
Maggie