It is Day Two of 2014 and, already, this year has been packed to the brim with emotional expression and inner-exploration. Coming to understand that The Nothing is actually my friend and that I get to choose about how I experience it and how others experience me while I’m in here, has been a big shift and one for which I am very grateful for.
However…
This is the first time I have truly allowed myself to feel this sadness, so it’s a biggie and, at times, I feel so very afraid that I am going to be swallowed in this experience. I didn’t know this sadness was in me until midnight on New Year’s Eve when The Nothing closed in on me and I realized what is really in here with me and why I am here. But even then, when the longing revealed itself to me – or, rather, when I allowed myself to uncover the longing – I didn’t realize it was this big.
Clients have said to me time and again, “Angie, I cannot do what you ask of me. If I let myself feel ________ (fill in the blank with whatever emotion), I will not make it through.” I have had moments in my life where I have felt that, so I could empathize with them. But, this time, as I really allow myself to look at this old pain, I can see just how vast the pain is – covering many lifetimes – and I am really scared that I will not make it through, that, somehow, this longing will swallow me and I will be done.
While at dinner last night with my best friend, I listened to her heart breaking open and her timid admittance, “I definitely don’t believe in fairy tales.”
I felt my fear rise as she talked about not believing in fairy tales and not trusting any aspect of earth life. I felt scared because I resonated. My closing lines of yesterday’s post had originally been, “I have been waiting a very long time for my fairy tale ending of happily ever after. Maybe it’ll never come.” But I changed it to something that sounded less bleak.
But, there, sitting across the table from her, my awarenesses tumbled to the surface and spilled forth from my mouth before I could stop it, “I’m afraid I have no more hope.”
We stared at one another, tears brimming in our eyes until they spilled forth in steady streams. There we were, staring at one another and crying together, the only comfort being that we were together in this. There were no answers.
This morning, I awoke after a fitful night, feeling beaten and tender. My tummy is in turmoil and I feel heavy, weighted with the knowing that I don’t trust this planetary experience and I have no more hope. My heart is gaping wide with the ache of longing and the human need to “belong.”
So, by choice, I am filling my ears with songs that cause me to soar. I am filling my eyes with images that delight me. I am allowing the tears to flow. I am recognizing this pain and allowing the sadness to move through me. I am honoring the grief I feel from the destruction of my dreams and I am dancing with the pain of it all. Because… well… that is all I can do… allow it, surrender.
And through it all, I have recognized that there is still one piece of hope left in me… I hope that my trust and hope will return soon. So, there’s that…
photo credit: h.koppdelaney via photopin cc
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I always welcome your thoughts, questions, and comments.
Feel free to jot down what you’re thinking in the comment box below.
I love that you are allowing yourself to let the emotions out and flow through you.It is so powerful for your healing. I also love that you are filling your senses with music and images that lift you to a higher vibration. Thank you for sharing your heart!
Thank YOU, Deanna, for being witness to my heart.
Angie, I can absolutely identify with that second to last paragraph. Something tells me you have made the right choice … surrender. That ‘one piece of hope’ is all you really need. Hold on.
Unknown to you, you have touched so many with this sharing.
Oh! I often forget that “my” process of healing through writing out my heart publicly touches others too. Thank you, Kathy, for the gentle acknowledgment.
Thanks for sharing your heart with us. I know some of what you feel. Here’s a line from the poem I share in my upcoming book:
“I know what it is like to break.
I know what it is like to be broken.
I know what it is like to feel so raw that the mere possibility of light and love scare you into clinging to the darkness where disappointment cannot cut you again.
I know what it is like to cry from the pit of your soul and feel like you are alone in absolute darkness.
What I have sown in tears, I now reap the reward of knowing that my pain can be for someone else’s gain. There are lessons I have lived and messages etched on my heart that I have been divinely positioned to deliver.”
Thank you for sharing that, Tai. What a beautiful poem!
Hello Angie! Thank you for allowing yourself to go fearward and showing vulnerability as someone who doesn’t have all the answers. That takes courage. And it can be very freeing. So please don’t mind me cheering you on here. I would like to tell you: “Yes! Do give up hope! Who needs hope when its counterpart is hopelessness? Good riddance to both. Why not go straight to trusting only your experience? And why not believe in nothing, unless your experience tells you otherwise? You may just be on the threshold of a most wonderous realization.” Then again, I don’t have to tell you anything, and please believe nothing I say, unless it resonates in your experience.
Thank you, Nell. 🙂 You said everything and nothing all at once. Brilliant!