“How did you decide to have four kids?,” The things you talk about at a birthday party, right?
“We wanted four. Hashtag babyfeverforever!” (My standard response.)
“I loved having babies. I’m BUILT for having babies. But,” it was an honest conversation so I continued honestly, “I’ll tell you what, though. I didn’t know I was opening myself to a lifetime of pain. FOUR TIMES THE PAIN!”
I may have wailed a little bit on pain. Paaaiiiinnn.
I started out the sentence honestly and halfway through I shifted to make a joke out of it. Because half way through, it began to hurt more than I wanted to hurt.
(And before you worry, dear ones, just remember that we have two teens and two more to come. We are in the throes of teens. Parenting teens is not for the faint hearted. And if you are fainthearted, well…tough.)
I’d been skirting around this pain all fall. It has manifested in a variety of ways — anger, frustration, irritability, eye rolling, flippancy. (And that was just me, the adult, lol.)
That’s what we do, right? We push pain away, we stuff it down, we build walls, we let pain blossom into anger or fear, we tell ourselves that it doesn’t matter or someone else’s is worse or ‘I dealt with that a long time ago’ or ‘I’ll get to it later’. My self-preservation game is strong. I bet yours is, too.
We resist pain. Looking at it out of the corner of our eye, it’s overwhelming and unbearable, so we find ways to avoid it.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you block out the pain, you block out the joy as well. It turns out that the plunge into darkness is the only way to the light. That accepting and working through our pain is the only way to joy.
Advent-Christmas reveals itself to be a healing mechanism. A cyclical call to stop resisting pain/darkness and dwell in it. A ritual of inner housecleaning, going to the dark corners and doing the dirty work needed to clear out the old junk. Dwell in the darkness so that you can dwell in the light.
The church year calls us to be faithful to our own inner work. Advent-Christmas and Lent-Easter are cycles of darkness-light and death-life. The church year pushes us toward a deeper level of healing and wellbeing by attending to our pain.
We resist the dark because the dark is where the pain is. Advent is a call to stop resisting. Honestly, it’ll probably get worse before it gets better. “Do not be afraid,” says the angel. What feels terrifying, overwhelming, unbearable, only lasts for a short while.
Remember that if darkness is associated with pain, it is also associated with rest. Rest comes after pain is alleviated. Exhaustion comes after weeping. And what kind of sleep do you get in the light? You need darkness for rest.
Resistance gives way and the deep dive into pain turns into rest. And when you are rested, the night turns into day and the Light dawns. And you’ll be ready for it.
This is Advent.
How to do Advent honestly:
Attend to what is within.
Make the move through resistance into the darkness.
Do not be afraid.
Rest.
And be ready for the Light.
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.” Isaiah 11:10
Leilani Kritzinger is a doula and birth photographer in the Inland Empire. She and her husband, Devo, have contributed four amazing humans to the world. Hobbies include yoga, classical singing, and managing her HSP-ness.