When Claire brought her “nettles” problem to the communal meeting someone gave her a book describing all the benefits of nettles and they made a thought provoking comment. We pick up the last installment of the story of “Nettles” as Claire reflects on the comment the person made to her. 

The second thing she [Claire] discovered was that doing something different makes a difference. No matter how much she advocated nettle tea, or tried to sell people on its health benefits, the other residents may still have avoided drinking it. By changing the name, she changed the outcome. To bring about a change she needed to do something different.

Perhaps she began to think, the expereince of the past is not immutable. Today people will drink a beverage that yesterday they thought was undrinkable. Maybe now I can enjoy the benefits of something that terrified me as a child. Perhaps the experiences of the past can be altered by what we do in the present.

Her friend who had given her the book said something that also stuck in her mind. “We can’t rid the garden or the rest of the property of nettles for it is their home as well as ours. You can’t change the physical reaction you have to them. If it is outside your ability to alter those realities, then I suggest that you learn to love them.”

adapted from “Learning to Love Your Discomfort” in 101 Healing Stories, by George W. Burns

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There are many things in life we cannot change including what hapened to us in the past. But we can do something differently. We can gratefully embrace our past pain as our teacher. We can also embrace our present difficulties, our fractured self, our dissociative defenses, as teachers of love for self, for Creator, and for others. For in owning our imperfections and weaknesses we become compassionate people capable of moving forward because we remember that our past is not our future.