​Three Stone Cutters.
 
There were three stone cutters who worked side by side cutting rough stones of rock into shaped blocks which were then placed in the walls of a great cathedral. 
 
 “What are you doing?” the first stone cutter was asked. He replied, “What does it look like I am doing? All day I pick up one after another of these rough stones and shape it into a block for the cathedral”.
 
“What are you doing?” the second stone cutter was asked. He replied, “All day I pick up one after another of these rough stones and shape it into a block for the cathedral. This is a good job that provides a nice house, clothing and food for my family”.
 
 
“What are you doing”? the third stone cutter was asked. He replied, with an air of reverence, “All day I pick up one after another of these rough stones and shape it into a block for the cathedral. These blocks are building place that will be a beacon for humankind for centuries to come. They will come here and find solace and inspiration. There will be shelter and food for travelers and the poor here. It is a privilege to do my small part in such a noble undertaking”.
 

Several Years ago:

on YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkV2QQFdTdI&t=2s
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​THE TURBULENCE OF HEALING
 
Healing from trauma - which I am defining here as chronically suppressed emotion - can sometimes feel like going through severe turbulence on a night flight. When your squished-down grief, terror, shame and rage decide to break through the ego’s defences and surge into conscious awareness, when you start to un-freeze and contact the raw and inconvenient truth of what’s inside you, it can feel really disorienting, uncomfortable, can feel unsafe and unnatural, can feel like you’ve lost control, can feel like it will never end and you’ll be stuck in darkness forever. But the turbulence is perfectly safe, and normal, and healthy! And it will pass, and your flight WILL arrive at its destination, and you WILL heal.
 
In the midst of the turbulence of emotion, it’s easy to get lost in thinking and fantasy, in fast-forwarding the movie, leaving the present and imagining the future. “This is too much”. “It’s going to get worse”. “I’m going to die”. “Something is going horribly wrong”. “I am broken”. “I need to get off this damn flight...”
 
But emotional turbulence is not a sign of your failure or brokenness, just as actual turbulence on a flight is not a sign that you have gone off course, or the pilot has lost control, or the airplane is broken, or the destination is now impossible to reach.
 
Emotion is always safe, even if it sometimes feels unsafe in its intensity. The body can be trusted absolutely. Intensity is not inherently dangerous. Planes are built to withstand even the most extreme turbulence. And so you learn to breathe through the discomfort, and lean in to the rawness of the moment, and this is how even the deepest trauma is ultimately healed. Through love. Through deep acceptance. Through faith. Through penetrating even our most profound discomfort with a loving awareness. Through coming out of our minds, out of our futures, and into our present bodies...
 
Trust the turbulence, friend; it means you’re already soaring.
 
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When I taught you
at eight to ride
a bicycle, loping along
beside you
as you wobbled away
on two round wheels,
my own mouth rounding
in surprise when you pulled
ahead down the curved
path of the park,
 I kept waiting
for the thud
of your crash as I
sprinted to catch up,
while you grew
smaller, more breakable
with distance,
pumping, pumping
for your life, screaming
with laughter,
the hair flapping
behind you like a
handkerchief waving
goodbye.
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