“There’s no way around pain. All you can do is make friends with the Devil. Feel it. Move through it.”
– Dwayne Cassius Pride, NCIS: New Orleans
Season 2, Episode 4, “I Do”

While I don’t particularly recommend any sort of friendship with the Devil, literal or figurative, the point still stands. 😉

As I’m writing this, I just barely finished watching this season’s finale of Doctor Who, where the Doctor spent a great deal of time trying to avoid the pain of losing one more loved one. Similarly, Pride says this to his friend and subordinate, Chris LeSalle, who recently had his lifelong love stolen from him by nothing more than a murderer’s whim. Certainly that is the most potent of all agonies, but it holds true for many other flavors of pain.

LeSalle hasn’t been dealing with his pain very well. He’s been trying to avoid it, staying out all nights, getting drunk, and hooking up with girls all over the place. The solace offered by the world is not so very healthy, and Pride speaks up to try and nudge LeSalle off a path that can only prolong his suffering, before he hurts himself too badly.

Loss happens. Pain happens. Neither can be avoided, no matter how hard we try. Indeed, doing so only forces us to dwell on it that much longer. It’s like poisoning our wounds and letting it seep through our souls. It’s much better, in the long run, to stop trying, to let ourselves feel the pain which is a natural result of trauma, without giving in to it. That’s the fastest way through, which is the only way out.

The first step of healing what hurts within is to acknowledge that it hurts.

Feel it. Move through it. Become whole again.