Don’t you just love it when you realize something? Like a suddenly you understand something that has never made much sense to you no matter how many times you’ve heard it before? I love that!

Today, I accidentally realized why working on things can be a big waste of time. I had a terrible, melt-down kind of day today. I went to bed exhausted, and when I woke up I didn’t get out of bed for three hours. I laid there feeling into how bad I felt, and inviting it to express itself and move on. As I drifted in and out of sleep, I had crazy dreams that didn’t seem to help much other than make me realize that I was still feeling terrible. Finally, I gave in and got up.

Then I had a business meeting with my husband. Well, tried to. He gently and adroitly asked if I felt like “we” were in any state to have this meeting? He was very calm, as I first baited him and then he just listened as I described how I was feeling. We just sat there in the light of what I just shared.

I didn’t try to fix it. I was just miserable. I didn’t try to make it bigger or wallow in it. I just felt it.

And as we sat there for a few minutes in silence, I shed a few silent tears and started feeling better.

Nothing was fixed. Nothing was solved. Nothing had changed as far as my mind was concerned. And I felt better.

I still feel like I need to really cry and other than that it has passed.

As I was walking up the hill on my way home this evening, I reflected that just shining light on the situation, just sharing it openly and having it witnessed by another was enough. It didn’t need fixing this time.

It just needed to be exposed. Outed.

Like so many secrets or dark things, shining the light on them can be enough.

Walking up, I realized why people say that sometimes fixing things doesn’t work. Sometimes if we jump into fix it mode we miss the opportunity for the problem to go away on its own. We miss the opportunity for it to fix itself. We might even be holding it in place sometimes when we do this, because we move the much needed light of focus away from the problem and shine it on “the solutions” instead.

So, I ask pardon for all of those times I tried to fix anyone! Please forgive me. I am sorry. Sometimes we want solutions, and sometimes it’s better to just give the thing the breathing room to heal itself. Voila! It passes.