Stuck in One's Craw
It's a strange phrase. Something really bothers us, gets under our skin, won't leave us alone. It's stuck in my craw.
Webster's defines craw as the crop, or stomach, of a bird. So the phrase points at undigested food. Something swallowed that won't break down.
Which is what an irritation is. An undigested annoyance.
And what do we do with it? We chew. We go over the thing again, and yet again, looking for the cause, looking for who's to blame, rehearsing what we should have said.
None of it digests. It never does.
Because we're working on the wrong object.
It's not what's stuck in our craw that matters. It's noticing the one who is bothered. A me. As we read in A Course in Miracles, "No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected."
The source of all sorrow has nothing to do with the world, or our body, or another body. Even though those seem so compelling and convincing. It's the clinging to a me that can be upset at all.
And simply by looking at that, we step out of the me and into what we actually are.
So while the me busily complains about the thing that won't go down, we inwardly turn and look at the complainer.
And realize there was never anything to digest.