When we face all the ways we have numbed ourselves, pain will inevitably emerge—in fact, it has been waiting a long time to do so. Of course, the fear of these exiled parts is also natural. “When you have a lifetime of emotions that you have been running from,” writes Helen Knott, “it seems like once they catch up they will gang-beat you and leave you crippled in an alleyway.”[4] That need not happen. The compassion of truth recognizes that pain is not the enemy. In fact, pain is inherently compassionate, as it tries to alert us to what is amiss. Healing, in a sense, is about unlearning the
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