Stove Top Pain

As quite often, my inspiration for today's post came from something I saw… and then way over thinking it. I was at a friends house talking with her in the kitchen when she put her hand on the stove top to lean on it and continued talking. She has a flat stove top with multiple burners and she just put her hand directly on it (obviously because it was off) and never thought anything more of it. However, as mentioned, I did think about it and below are the thoughts I came up with, based on my experiences and possibly the experiences of yourself as well. It gave me a different perspective and I thought I might as well share and see if it encourages anyone else.

Now, most of us don’t put our hands on stove elements. And most of us especially don’t put our hands on stove elements and then turn it on… that results in… you know… burnt flesh, which sucks. And is gross. BUT do we do this with our emotions? Do we bring our minds to a place that can cause us harm? Perhaps at first going over old photos/journals/emails/thoughts, etc. will not be painful but if you continue to keep your mind dwelling on such things will pain not come? Pain that is brought forth by unnecessarily focusing on the emotions you felt at a certain time in your past, the wrongs people did you, the guilt of the wrongs you did, etc.. This very same pain which you have already worked through, fought to overcome, forgiven yourself, forgiven others and moved on.

Similarly, if you put your hand on a cold stove element and turn it on, at first it will not hurt you as the element is cold, but if you keep your hand there eventually you will get burned as the element heats up. Would you then not look down at your burnt hand and ask yourself “Self… why did I just do that? I knew that I was going to get burned if I kept my hand there.”

So I guess my thoughts focus around the fact that while I don’t think it’s bad to look back at the past, it’s also not smart to stay there… that is where the pain is and if you keep your emotions(hand) on the past(burner) you have the great chance of burning yourself. Learn from the past and walk confidently in the present and into the future with the lessons you learned.

Friends, be careful by the stove; that crazy contraption.