Tag: emotion

How to Comfort Our Pain.

Someone posted recently to my timeline that love and despair were mutually exclusive; that they could not exist within the same space and time – as one caused pleasure and the other furthered our pain.

At face value, we assume this to be true. And, yet – though they are unique, there is a commonality between…as each invokes a compassionate release.

As a new mother, I would rush to comfort my crying son. I’d hold him tightly into the wee hours of morning, rocking gently and secretly pleading for it to end. Until one day when an old woman counseled me, “Let him cry, dear. This is his way of allowing the energy to dissipate.”

When I first committed to this spiritual path, I – like so many others – read books, practiced meditation and attended an unprecedented amount of lectures all in the hopes of releasing my pain. I learned the techniques, yet failed to reason.

I assumed that mindfulness required a lessening of reaction. While certainly a benefit of the longer-term haul, no amount of lecturing can ever obviate the necessity of release.

To feel pain, does not preclude our ability to feel and respond to love. Rather, together they help to deepen our awareness.

“I feel pain” is often a catalyst for pulling away. Something hurts, we wish it to end – quickly and by any means possible.

Racing to comfort my infant son was a natural and rightful reaction – though, my motivation then wasn’t clear. In my naïveté I assumed that in stopping his crying, the pain would go away. But, that’s not often the case. Isn’t it better to allow the energy to settle? That the comfort extended should serve as a benefit to this process?

Someone once shared with me that we should respond to our own pain as a ‘mother comforting her little one’ – with patience, willingness and a boundless compassion.

Yes, there is pain – but there is also love. As one recedes, a gentle nurturing effects its growth.

And, in the end, we are made whole.

As Jack Kornfield writes, “You hold in your hand an invitation: to remember the transforming power of forgiveness and loving kindness. To remember that no matter where you are and what you face, within your heart peace is possible.”

In peace, my sweet friends…

Namaste ❤️

The Lesson of Shore.

Someone once asked me how do I remain so calm in the midst of chaos?

The answer? I don’t. Well, not always. I experience pain, frustration, sadness – sometimes, even rage. Though now, with a sense of knowing that all things must pass.

Sit with yourself for just a moment, simply opening to the vast complexity of emotion – you may notice a natural ‘ebb and flow’.

Like waves to the shoreline, their energy is strongest upon impact. Their sound, often deafening as the raging waters breach the sanctity of a seemingly endless coast.

Though what we know, is what we often miss. We brace for its crushing impact even as the wave is yet forming. We close our eyes and clench our fists, waiting always for the ‘worst’ of it.

In doing so, we may miss its shimmering lines breaking in the distance. Or the soft foams gently receding, followed by a sacred hush.

The divine manifests in all creatures and things. Even within the tumbling waves, there is a certain inexplicable glory. To love this life, is to connect with its grace.

And with respect to those much greater emotions…how can we consider their gravity without appreciating their means?

In peace, my sweet friends…and thank you for the continued gift of your light.

Namaste ❤

On What We Become.

I passed a family laying a wreath at the roadside this morning; a young soldier on his way home for the day was killed by an oncoming driver. The tire tracks marking the car’s final attempt still fresh up the pavements edge. An older woman kneeled and wept (I presume she may have been the Mother).

There’s a beauty, oddly, even amidst these dire circumstances – this outpouring of love in the midst of crisis, a family joined through impermeable bonds. In this moment, nothing masked the honesty of their emotions.

It’s one of the more delicate certainties of being human.

We are born, we live, we die…and, somewhere in between, the soul awakens. No matter how well we live, the efforts we take towards balance and harmony – we can not escape our own ‘becoming’.

I remember the night my son was born; watching him alone in the bassinet, I was suddenly quite fearful. How could I protect this innocent soul through life? Losing him was my greatest worry. But then one day I realized, I wanted him to know.

I wanted him to know the taste of rain in the air following a heavy storm; the joy of a puddle splashing up his backside during a hot summer’s day. I wanted him to flip over rocks and capture salamanders with his bare hands. To know the taste of salt dripping from his sweat-soaked skin.

And, even though there might be pain – I wanted him to know what it meant to be adored through another’s eyes.

I’m not sure why, though the sight of this family helped to carry this lesson home.

“Our individual life is an expression of the whole mystery,” writes Jack Kornfield, “and in it we can rest in the center of the movement, the center of all worlds.”

In the center of all worlds, we stand alone – raw and unobscured. In the end, we become what we’ve lived.

I stopped to offer my condolences, of course. “Thank you,” she said, not realizing how this young man’s life continued to share.

In peace…

Namaste ❤️

Letting Go of That Which Impedes.

My darlings, have you ever known the energy of feeling angry, upset, or unsettled?

That is to say – the physical aspect of these core emotions as they directly manifest within our spirit.

Do your shoulders ache beneath the angst; is there a sense of upset within your belly pit. Does worry keep you far into the night; and fear freeze you to that ‘safety net’?

My darlings, how do these emotions make you FEEL?

Now, take a moment to ask yourself – just what is it that is keeping you here?

So, let it go, and let it be my darlings – and, let the spaciousness of nothingness fill its place.

Embrace this day, loves ~ as, it’ll never find its way here again.

Namaste