The Doorway No One Chooses

No one walks willingly into pain.

We flinch from loneliness. We resist grief. We armor ourselves against the ache.

And yet…

Isn’t it true that some of the deepest recognitions come only when the world stops making sense?

Not in joy. But in rupture.

There are moments like loss, abandonment, heartbreak when everything we knew collapses.

Not gradually, not gently… but all at once.

And for a while, we fall. We disappear beneath our own skin. We become unrecognizable. Sometime even to ourselves.

But slowly, like dawn seeping through cracks, something begins to stir.

Not hope.

Not yet.

Just the absence of noise. And in that absence something ancient begins to speak.

“Be a light unto yourself.”

~ Buddha

Pain does not teach with words. It teaches by stripping away what cannot hold.

And in that emptiness, we meet something real, something that was never dependent on being seen, wanted, understood, or praised.

This is the 'Self.'

Not the one we invented to survive. But the one that simply is, before the story, beneath the sorrow.

I tell you...

Loneliness, when held with presence, becomes solitude.

Grief, when not rushed, becomes remembrance.

Hurt, when not denied, becomes transformation.

The wound, too, is a teacher. But not one who speaks, it sits quietly until you sit beside it.

And then, if you’re still enough… it shows you that even pain can bow before awareness.

the ache came like a tide,

not to drown me,

but to return me to shore,

i had wandered so far,

into roles, into noise,

that i forgot the shape of my own silence,

but grief sat beside me,

and said nothing,

and in that nothing,

i began to remember,

not who i should become,

but who i already was,

before the hurt,

beneath the loss,

still whole.

You may not have chosen this pain. But if you’re here, standing at the edge of yourself, let this not be an ending. Let it be a doorway.

You are not unraveling. You are uncovering.

After reading, if something stirred in you, echo it back.

A silence. A name. A truth remembered.

No need to explain.

Just share what moved.

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© 2025 Beyond Silence. Written by 'the one listening.'

If shared, please credit with care.