The Jar

I have a little jar that sits on my shelf.  It’s a magic jar.  It holds things I can’t hold myself.  It holds things I don’t want to hold myself.  It never fills up.  Whenever I come upon something I don’t know how to handle, I put it in the jar.  I tamp it down and screw the lid on tight and put the jar back on the shelf.

We’re taught not to dwell on our feelings.  We’re supposed to be “strong” and “deal” with our negative feelings in a manner that doesn’t make those around us feel uncomfortable, meaning it needs to be quick and dear God in Heaven don’t let anyone know about it!  How do you do that without fully experiencing the emotion?  You put it in the jar and you close the lid.

The thing about the jar is that every time I put something in the jar I have to open it.  When I open the jar, everthing I’ve already put in the jar is still there for me to see and experience again.   Here I was experiencing one thing, trying to “deal” with it, and all of a sudden all of these old things are coming back to make me feel bad again because I opened the jar.  Now I feel 10 times worse because there are all these hurt feelings and sadnesses swirling around in the jar and they want to jump out and get all over me because I never fully felt them the first time.

Had I just let the experience flow over me, been completely in the moment of the sadness or the grief or the hurt, could I have let it run it’s course enough that it would start to lose it’s power over me?   It’s a very difficult thing to do, to let yourself completely experience a hurt.  It’s painful.  It’s excruciating sometimes.  It seems like it’s never going to end.  So we cut it off, we put it away, we tamp it down in the jar and screw the lid on tight.

But it’s still there.  Next time I open the jar to put something inside it’s going to be there for me to see and remember and hurt all over.   Sometimes I try other things to help the gunk stay in the jar.  Food works for me.  Food renders the gunk in the jar impotent.  It can’t hurt me if I have my food shield on.  Others use alcohol or drugs to keep the lid on.   We all have our tools, right?  The thing about that is that the stuff is still in the jar and as soon as I let my shield down it’s right there waiting.

So how do I stop putting things in the jar?  How do I empty the jar?  Because one of two things is going to happen if I don’t learn – either the jar is going to fall and break and all my gunk will spill out all at once, or my food shield is going to become as big as a house and swallow the earth.