The dance of life

There it is again. The unmistaken pain, the overwhelming sadness that’s sitting deep in my tummy making it hard to breathe. And yet, that is what I have to do. Breathe the sadness. Though the feeling doesn’t want to be breathed.

The mind does it’s best to distract its attention from the pain. It tries to understand why the feeling is there and where it came from, but does that really matter?

I try to talk to the pain; to be curious. To sit with it and feel it without being overwhelmed.

Why is it there and what is its message. I feel gratitude to what comes to me.

And there it is again; the hunger for something to fill the emptiness with. Can I make it go away by having some chocolate or some other comfort food? It will feel really good in that moment as I eat it, but the feeling will still be there.

Some say: “don’t cry” as if tears were bad. But they’re not bad. Sadness isn’t bad. It just is, and if we put a fake smile on our face and pretend we’re fine; we’re just hiding the emotion somewhere deep within. Which prevents the joy from being real. And that lack of authenticity is felt by the other. The only way through is feeling the emotion. And yet that can be the hardest thing to do.

So I try to find a gentle way to be with the pain. To sing some mantras, to breathe, and gently moving it from its frozen state to a river. To a river of tears that run down my cheek happy to be released into the big ocean. And I’m happy that I’m able to feel and allow that to happen.

I meditate so I can be so present I can notice when I tend to escape into my mind; or when I distract myself with something else; like an activity to keep myself so busy I have no time to sit with myself. So it can numb itself from the pain. Pretend like it doesn’t exist.

However for each layer that is revealed and released, the body feels more relieved. There’s more peace, less tension and also more deeper pain being recovered as I go deeper and deeper within.

That is painful to the ego. The ego that wants to pretend everything is fine; the ego that wants to keep the masked untruth hidden. So it puts on more and more masks, which creates more and more anxiety. The anxiety that sits at the bottom of my diaphragm and appears in certain situations in life. Which makes my mind go: oh no, not again. Didn’t I work my way through this? And my body goes clearly not.

Then the mind spins into mindless stories. And it takes all I can to muster to talk to my mind. Sometimes I succeed. Sometimes I don’t. What counts is that I get closer and closer each time.

I practice stopping the mind. I practice feeling the pain.

And then from somewhere deep within is an almost silent voice of gratitude: that realizes that’s what’s happening in life that the ego doesn’t want and that creates tears, pain and hurt – that that is a gift so I can heal or rather break free all that is broken.

So I thank GOD for sending it my way and I remind myself to trust and have faith that the universal love has me covered and knows what’s best for me better than my limited ego.

And then at some point I suddenly forget the gratitude and return to pain. It’s like a dance. I try to remember what I want, reminding myself of that. To come back to who I am deep within; the eternal soul. I breathe. I feel. I am I am.

It is a dance of breathing and being with what is. Satnaam. Waheguru.