One day, in my former job, as I was helping a young mother fill out paperwork for divorce, the grandmother was holding the 3-year-old daughter. The girl asked for a drink of water and the grandmother went out to her car to get a bottle of water. Since the mother was engrossed in her paperwork and conversation with me, the grandmother began to open the cap on the bottle. The child immediately went into a corner and started crying from the depths of her being yelling: “I wanted mommy to open it.” There was no consoling her. What immediately went through my mind was the thought that if I had tried that as a child, one of my parents would have said: “Stop crying or we’ll give you something to cry about.”

This mother and grandmother, very aware of the stressful situation they were in, could understand the child’s need for closeness to her mother. They spoke calmly and lovingly to her, as they let her cry a bit. Then the mother invited her into her lap and proceeded to open the bottle. She said: “See, I’m opening it for you.” The girl’s sense of security at being heard was palpable.

This incident has stayed with me for years. On the one hand, it was a healing experience because I was able to witness how a loving and understanding parent can react to a child. On the other hand, it was a reminder that being angry at God, or at life, for being in difficult circumstances will not bring me retribution as I was brought up to understand in my Catholic faith at that time.

So now, when I’m going through a difficult time, feeling like there’s no solutions to my problems, like I’ve been abandoned, I cry out, and curse, yelling at the unfairness of life. I tell God or the Universe about all the good I’ve done and how I don’t deserve these troubles and I’m sick of it. That is not a time to think about how others have it worse than me or that victims of random acts of violence don’t deserve it. I know that. During this period of darkness, it’s time to practice self-compassion. When I can allow myself to feel my pain, I’m emptying out feelings of anger, abandonment and the bone-weariness that sometimes arises from wanting to live life as fully and as lovingly as possible.

As a mental health issue, I know I need to feel my feelings, not bottle them up like I did for too many years causing emotional and physical pain. It also stunted my spiritual growth. So when I need to, I release all my inner pain and when my emotions are spent, I can then be quiet. I allow myself to just be and feel the release. In the quiet that follows, I usually get an idea or an answer to resolve my situation. Because I know, from experience, that the answers will come, I can wait. We have the wisdom within us that can speak to us when we are quiet. If our minds and hearts are in pain, and we try to suppress it, then we won’t get to that place where we can “let the mud settle and wait until the water becomes clear.” (Lao Tzu)

Helen Rousseau is an interfaith minister. Her website is at www.helenrousseau.com.