When the Sh*t Stink Lingers - Felicia Murrell

At some point in my life, I came to the realization that I don’t like being around people who once made me feel like sh*t. Even if I was the one creating the narrative about what I thought they thought about me. It doesn’t make being around these people any easier. Sh*t stink lingers on the fingers long after you’ve washed your hands. And sometimes it’s hard to separate actual people from the story you’ve told yourself about those people. But this is the arduous, brutiful (beautiful + brutal) work of healing. The separating, the unraveling. Unbinding yourself from narratives that perpetuate bitterness. 

 

As we surrender to Love’s perfect work, the fury of Love is aimed at everything that is not of Love’s kind. Stripping away all the muck that dims our unique expression as image-bearers …including the narratives we tell ourselves to protect ourselves from other people’s character defects. The things in my life, in your life that happened, happened. Nothing diminishes the veracity of your experience… 

 

The change Love invites us into is how we live and move and have our being in spite of, or rather, because of those things. How do I exist in my body in a way that isn’t fragmented or stunted? For me, when sh*t stink lingers on my fingers, my defended self goes into warrior mode - distancing, walling off, hiding out, doing whatever feels right to protect herself from pain, from hurt and harm. Whenever I catch a whiff of that foul smell, I know it’s an invitation to pause. To touch my heart. To name fear. Feel my feet supported by the earth. To express gratitude for the self who survived hell and has lived to tell it. This does not always silence the stories, but like the eye of a storm, in the center all is calm. And from this grounded state, I tell my mind: I will not live trapped in a story of my own making, and I offer myself compassion.

 

As Tara Brach says, “Compassion honors our experience; it allows us to be intimate with the life of this moment as it is. Compassion makes our acceptance wholehearted and complete.”

 

-Felicia Murrell, 2021