Those days happen. When your barriers are down, vulnerabilities are laid bare, and the submerged emotions pour out of your depths weakening cracks and bursting fault lines. The heaviness of the heart seems impossible fear encroaches upon hope. Crawling into a closet and holding yourself seems like the only possible thing to do.
Law of Attraction.
We hear so often in society that positive thinking, intention setting, awareness of the quality of your energy, and the such create your environment. So I try. I try to think positively, to remain hopeful, encouraged, grateful, positive, and all of that juicy goodness. And I’m a believer, don’t get me wrong. That shift in perspective and energy has made a noticeable and has impacted my life for the better.
But some days I need to cry.
Just because I am trying to be positive doesn’t mean that I always feel that way. So often I concentrate harder on being hopeful and positive because I am battling the fear that is rising up. For me, part of the human experience is the gamut of emotions we are capable of feeling. As a result, some days I need to feel the fear. Not because I want to…but because it is inside me and denying its existence is not only futile but perhaps unhealthy. If left ignored, it has the potential to grow without you knowing it and if rendered vulnerable, could consume your very being.
Give yourself permission.
TodayI felt weird and awkward and stepped on the yoga mat with the intention of escaping those feelings. At one point, I was forced to look at the cause of the unease: fear. I’m scared. I’m taking risks I’ve never taken before, I’m struggling in ways new to me, my confidence is so easily dashed, and despite my attempts at remaining open, I am failing my expectations. And so I gave myself permission to cry. I was in my sanctuary, and so I let my guard down completely and fell down the winding hole of failure. What it feels like and what it looks like in this particular moment. It’s so fucking terrifying.
I wish I could say I got off the mat feeling refreshed and back into the positive pleasantries. But an hour wasn’t enough to feel the depths of fear dwelling within me. To see the multi-layered dimensions of that emotion. To understand it and embrace it as an aspect of myself. An hour is not enough, so I am giving myself permission, for one day, to wallow in anguish. To acknowledge it’s presence, and to recognize its incarnations in my life. I am granting myself the time to experience the possibilities of failure. I am dedicating energy to emptying myself of the damaging destruction of despair and purging myself of those debilitating diatribes.
Dance in the darkness of your shadow.
Each of us carries the opposites within us. Losing contact with the shadow self creates an internal rift. Give yourself permission when you need to experience the despair you may be battling. Don’t deny it, dance with it, and then change partners.
The antidote to despair is not to be found in the brave attempt to cheer ourselves up with happy abstracts, but in paying a profound and courageous attention to the body and the breath, independent of our imprisioning thoughts and stories…We take the first steps out of despair b taking on its full weight…despair is a difficult, beautiful necessary, a binding understanding between human beings caught in a fierce and difficult world where half of our experience is mediated by loss. ~ David White
Be compassionate.
Allow yourself to exist in a cave of despair, and curl up with a comforter of compassion, and just breathe.
