Processed

Imagine...I enter the office and approach the receptionist and as I draw near, she lifts her head and looks me directly in the eye and asks "Have you been processed?". I tilt my head ever so slightly to the right and with what must seem like a look of confusion, I respond "processed?". She politely and knowing smiles back at me and suggests I make myself comfortable for a short wait in the lounge. Someone will come for me in a quick moment. Processed, processed, what does this mean? My imagination runs wild and I envision lying supine on a conveyer belt that moves steadily toward chopping and dicing industrial blades, dividing my body up into chunky pieces. Arms go in one bin, legs in another, torso drawn and quartered and my head, well that goes in a different direction all together and is carted off in a strange blue basket. "Hello, are you Linda?" a gentle non butcher like man asks, interrupting my nightmarish imaginings. Startled, I respond somewhat suspiciously, "um, yes, I'm Linda". "Great to meet you, I'm Alex. Welcome to process, or as we like to call it, the meat grinder." Processed is defined as: a series of actions or steps taken in order to achieve a particular end; a systematic series of mechanized or chemical operations that are performed in order to produce something. Have you been processed, Dear Reader? The rich life, the one with meaning and substance, it calls for processing. What do I mean by this, you ask? There is a culling, a gathering of the choice things and parts that require some attention from you, from me. There are parts in each of us that are dark, secret and hidden bits of nastiness, selfishness, ugliness. We know they are there, hidden in the shadows, lurking. There are also hurt, sad, wounded seemingly untouchable, unreachable parts of us that live and breath, sitting in a lonely corner of our soul, wanting comfort and release from pain. How about resentment, fear, and anger, do you recognize these companions? Look again at the definitions of process. There are steps to be taken, painful and at first tentative actions in a series required to achieve a particular end. What is the end, you ask? To be you, of course, the full on you that only you can be. Uproot the nasty, heal the hurt, comfort the wounded parts of you by taking stock of what sits waiting in the dark hidden netherlands of you. They are reachable, touchable BUT, you have to be willing to be drawn and quartered, perhaps put through the meat grinder of soul searching and course correction in order to find and live as the real you. How willing are you, Dear Reader, to be processed?