A pain drawer

Today, I’ve been thinking about what I call my pain drawer. In this inner place, grief and pain sometimes go when they cannot be held right now, not because they are being avoided or denied, but because they need to rest somewhere safe until I have the capacity to meet them properly.

There are different kinds of pain and grief, and they don’t all ask for the same response. Some hit very close to home, like losing a loved one, something that directly reshapes your life and demands attention in the moment. Those, whenever possible, need to be acknowledged and held as they arrive, witnessed in real time, because they don’t want to be postponed or stored away. They ask for presence.

And then there is another kind of pain, the kind that is not happening to us directly, yet still finds its way into the body. Pain that belongs to our people, pain we witness, pain we carry through empathy, identity, history, and belonging, even when nothing in our personal life has changed that day.

I’m writing this in the aftermath of the massacre in Byron Bay, Australia. I didn’t know the people personally, yet the sorrow landed heavily in me, joining a grief that has been accumulating since October 7, alongside the surge of antisemitism, anti-Jewish hatred, and anti-Zionism, and the familiar feeling that something ancient and unresolved keeps resurfacing. That pain drawer has been filling for a long time.

When these waves come, I try to slow down and notice what is actually present. Sometimes it’s sorrow or helplessness, often a deep sense of empathy and compassion, sometimes fear or anger, but most often a mixture of all of it moving through at once.

And then I ask myself a very practical question: can I handle this right now?

Sometimes these feelings arrive in the middle of the day, during class, or while holding space for clients, and then the honest answer is no. I can’t process all of this in that moment without losing my capacity to stay grounded or to show up for others. When that happens, the pain goes into the pain drawer.

This drawer isn’t locked or hidden. There’s no key, no code, nothing buried or sealed away. It’s very reachable. It simply allows me to create enough distance to keep living, stay present for my loved ones, do my work, and function without shutting down.

Yesterday it all arrived at once, and it was also the first night of Hanukkah. I asked myself again whether I could process everything right then, or whether I could acknowledge it, place it in the drawer for now, and choose something else for the moment.

So I chose to light the candles. I wished friends a happy Hanukkah. I kissed my loved ones. We said the prayer, sat with the light, and celebrated with latkes and sufganiot, while the pain drawer held everything.

This drawer feels bottomless, and it can hold a lot. I don’t abandon what’s inside it. I come back when I have more inner resources, more ground under my feet, when I can meet what’s there with respect rather than overwhelm.

For me, this isn’t avoidance. It’s a form of care.

I’m curious whether you have something like this in your own inner world, a place where pain can wait without being erased, and how you work with it.

That’s all for now.

Chag Sameach.