Sometimes you can't meditate the tears away,
Dear one.
You can't dance them away or eat them away.
You can't run until there are no more.
Sometimes all you can do is fall to your knees to ask for help,
To allow the dam around your sacred heart break,
To stop fighting the deep transformation asking for rebirth from the depths of your being.
You can't fight the inevitable for forever.
There must be a time when you finally lay down your guard,
Surrender,
Not out of weakness,
Not out of a lack of inability to keep forging ahead.
But because life is not worth living if every breath is a war inside of yourself.
When every breath you turn the other cheek from these parts of you asking for help,
For guidance,
Longing to be held in the wake of their death,
The ultimate fear of the unknown as we shed our skins,
As the mind that is trying to fix and solve and stay in control is shattered in a thousand shards at our feet.
And all there is left is to feel.
To feel the waves of sadness,
The fires of anger and resentment,
The sinking weight of doubt,
The paralyzing cold of fear.
It's taught that to feel anything other than happiness or joy is a bad thing.
Don't show your emotions.
Don't let people in.
Don't trust people.
Don't trust your feelings.
When you feel like this,
You get hurt.
When you love,
You get hurt.
When you cry,
You're left alone.
When you're angry,
People push you away.
Everything is teaching us to turn our backs on our greatest allies and teachers.
These feelings that guide us with a wisdom that no mind could ever offer.
These feelings that take us by the hand and show us where we are not living fully,
Show us where we are hiding the light,
The brightness,
The magnificence of who we are.
These feelings that allow us to die and be reborn.
Every time we allow ourselves to walk through the fire of feeling,
New life is waiting.
When you truly allow yourself to cry,
Isn't there something on the other side?
When you finally release that scream inside that has been burning in your chest and your belly,
Don't you feel a sense of relief even if you might be exhausted?
Our greatest misunderstanding is that we are the creator.
We are the greatest guide of wisdom,
That our feelings are a superpower to create the life that we are ready to choose.
Not the life that has been chosen for us by society,
The media,
Our family,
Peers,
But the life that we long to live from the soul.
That says,
This is how I choose to breathe and to laugh and dance and cry and howl at the moon or fall to my knees in desperation.
This is the way I choose it.
Our emotions are roadmaps.
Our emotions are signposts showing us which direction to go.
Why do we so often feel stuck or trapped in the midst of challenging emotional experiences?
It's because rather than allowing ourselves to feel these feelings and trust the wisdom they offer,
We resist.
We distract.
We pick up the phone or put on a movie or have a drink or two or ten.
We close our eyes and do everything we can to push our inner world away,
To do anything not to feel another moment of pain.
But the greatest gifts await us when we stop this resistance,
When we turn toward these feelings.
And rather than buy into the story that the mind tells us about why we feel it,
Just feel.
Find the place in your body right now that is screaming at you with emotion and just be with it.
Let go of the need to figure out why you feel what you feel or what it means.
Let go of the mind that says you should meditate more or go for a run or have a cigarette or another drink.
And just feel.
Take a breath into this pain that is calling your name and asking you to listen.
Asking you to pay attention to what is happening inside.
Our job is not to analyze why we feel what we feel.
We can feel what is happening inside without knowing at all why the emotion has arisen.
Emotion arises all of the time,
But it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what's happening in the moment.
So rather than labeling and analyzing and trapping ourselves in the mind that doesn't know how to feel the body,
Allow those thoughts to be released.
Release your grip on telling yourself this sad or angry or scary story.
And take a breath into your body.
Relax your jaw.
Take another deep,
Full breath into whatever painful discomfort is here.
Exhale through the mouth.
Release your fists,
Your jaw,
Your face.
Can you be present with this feeling inside and just breathe?
Just allow.
Rather than pushing this feeling away or trying to distract yourself,
What if you were to look at whatever emotional experience is present as a gift,
As a message of feeling guiding you to exactly where you need to be?
This doesn't mean that feeling the emotion will all of a sudden grant you great insight.
It simply allows for the space of ease,
Acceptance,
And even peace to be available to us when we allow ourselves to feel what's present without telling the story over and over.
So for these next moments,
Can you give yourself permission to breathe into this feeling,
Even welcome it into your heart if that feels right?
Relax your belly,
Your heart and chest.
Feel your hips and your legs and your feet and toes letting go.
And just breathe deeply,
Allowing the mind to release the thoughts one by one as they arise,
As you turn your attention over and over again to the breath and feeling what's happening right now.
So for these next moments,
Can you give yourself permission to breathe into this feeling,
Even welcome it into your heart if that feels right?
So for these next moments,
Can you give yourself permission to breathe into this feeling,
Even welcome it into your heart if that feels right?
So for these next moments,
Can you give yourself permission to breathe into this feeling,
Even welcome it into your heart if that feels right?
You are so beautiful,
So wise,
So creative,
So tender.
Allow the gifts of you to be enlivened.
Allow yourself to be seen by others.
You don't need to hide behind these walls and these masks,
Holding this pain inside,
Facing life alone,
Even when you're around others.
You don't need to do this anymore,
Beloved.
Give yourself the gift of connection.
Give yourself the gift of freedom and vulnerability.
Vulnerability is great courage,
The courage to feel and be open and allow life into every cell of your body.
Take a breath.
Feel that possibility of life that is waiting for you.
That is already vibrating in every particle of your being.
The beauty of you.
The grace of you.
The honor of you.
The preciousness of you.
You are so loved.
You are so held.
And you are not alone.
You are never alone.
Start turning toward yourself.
Start listening for your own inner wisdom.
And listen with your heart.
Allow yourself to feel these uncomfortable things inside,
Trusting that they're like the petals of a flower that gently fall one by one,
Revealing the nectar of you in the center.
The nectar of life.
The juiciness,
The fullness of what life is when you start to be with you,
Your own beloved self.
The magnificence of you.
I love you so.
