The Gift of Grief

I have been off my game lately, a little more absent-minded and a little less with the joys of the day. At first I thought it was simply the changes brought about by the side effects of winter hibernation-too many carbs and not enough exercise-that was making me sluggish in getting together with the energy of spring. Or, I would blame the energetics of living in a world distressed by it's economy serving as a wake-up call to grow up. However, as I sit here in my parents home and all that being here calls upon my emotions, I must honor the wisdom of what my tears are telling me...that loss is less about the words we use to talk of it and more of how it challenges us, even those who believe themselves ok with impermanence.

I am being brought back to the powerful workshop of grief and how important the work of grief is to growing compassion, first for ourselves and then the other. To our minds, feeling our sorrow is the antithesis of what it believes in and so we choose to avoid, gloss over, or go into psuedo-spiritual mode when feeling sorrow's presence. Grief is a powerful teacher on the truth of impermanence and simply wants us to worship each moment we are in, for this moment must die to birth the next moment. We are taught to disconnect our energy from that which is painful and call it maturity. And while this may keep us feeling safe and gain us the illusion of control, the truth is our withdrawal from what is painful simply removes the presence of our compassion
for ourself and the other.

And so, instead of stopping my tears, I allow them to flow down my face, their presence honoring the loss of my parent's place in what keeps me feeling safe and always loved as well as for their grief and fear of their destination. My child sees my tears and simply gives me a hug, innocent still of the price of the awareness of losing those always in your life. The tears help me to be more with the short and sweet of time-less important becomes what is past and more important what remains when the day is gone.... love, simply love.

Letting go of figuring it out

Letting go of figuring it out

For the last few days, I have been wondering what to blog about. Nothing profound was coming to mind, and my life was surely not providing me many inspirational moments. I put my desire for some water to come into my dry well of inspiration and then forgot about it. Then while dialoguing with someone about how we each chose to meet fear, I went halleluiah!…my blog topic has been
delivered! I love it when what I know to be true-clarity, prayer, release, trust-works so that I recognize it in my 3D world!

I was sharing with a woman how when I felt my fear at the many challenges in my life, I am committing to instead…. ….choosing faith in my spirit and my infinity to take care of meeting the challenges. She replied that without first understanding the fear, the fear would not leave and that in fact, it would increase it’s impact in one’s life. I recognized this “inquiring minds want to
know” tool as one I too have used in seeking to mine the gold out of an emotional experience I am having. And given the current nature of life (did I really sign up willingly for membership in “challenging, gotta figure out a better way, and whoohoo… lots of scary, crazy, overwhelming in scope stuff coming down the pike” times?), if I try to figure it all out with my mind, I will simply go
crazy! Trying to figure out with my mind “why” what if” “because”will simply fry my brains, sizzle my nervous system, and make checking out seem the sensible thing to do….and I really
don’t think that is the purpose of the massive changes in our world.

By living my commitment that life is not out to get me, I have chosen to trust even more that which cradles me and all beings brave enough to have signed onto being part of these monumental changes. Part of what I am changing within me in order to not get
bowled over with all that is coming down these days, is to relinquish my habitual/mental either-or” thinking…one of us is right, one of us must be wrong, etc. In this conversation of our
differences in meeting fear, instead of yielding to this mental habit and culturally enforced demand for polarity, there instead became room for both of us to be exactly who we are… “both-and” I call it.

Instead of competing and contracting the space we occupied together, there became a sharing and an expansion of the space we occupied. It was an amazing ah-ha on how our union with our
spirit and soul, in relationship with each other, creates the fertile ground for growing possibilities for the time we are hurtling toward.

So today, when you find yourself in the “either-or ” land of thinking, grant yourself the gift of instead choosing to expand into “both- and” thinking and feel the difference within you and
perhaps even notice the difference outside of you. It is an amazing time to be alive and part of the transition into a time of embracing both the secular and the spiritual as one, understanding all through compassion, and courageous creation through community.

For consciousness is our new currency….stay tuned for more!