On grief and surrendering…

“The area we are struggling in can often be the area we aren’t surrendering. Sometimes just admitting where we don’t know what to do and allow it to be fully felt opens up space for us to discover what we are on the other side.” /Kyle Cease/

This video by Kyle Cease arrived in my inbox few days ago.. I finally watched it on Monday morning and it made so much sense to me. I felt some raw emotions arising, but they couldn’t make their way out. I’ve watched the video several times now. And yesterday morning I woke up, sat on my bed in meditation and I felt different emotions popping up. I couldn’t name them -it’s not that I was trying mind you- but then one word stood out for me: GRIEF.

Let’s take a pause here…

Like what? Grief? Why? Apart from some of my plants, nothing/no one close to me has recently died. So how come ‘grief’ popped up in my meditation?

I don’t know, but I surrendered to it and I just cried and grieved- no judgement, no strategising what to do next and how- just me and my (suppressed) emotions coming out of me. It didn’t last long, but I started to feel more connected with my own ‘deep down’. I took some deep breaths and I felt more authentic and real than I had been recently. There was no fear at that moment. Only peace.

Later, as I was pottering around the kitchen, I started listening to  ‘Rising Strong as Spiritual Practice’ . I’m obsessed with Brene Brown and her work- probably you worked it out by now- but I’d never come across this recording till that morning. I wasn’t sure what to expect as my first thought was that it was going to be an audiobook, but I was wrong- it was a seminar with Brene Brown. Bonus! And then some 1 hour 36 minutes in, boom, she starts talking about grief! She relates it to boundaries, integrity, generosity  and forgiveness and explains that it is the only other emotion that ties closely with shame.

‘Grief is about longing, it’s about loss and it’s about feeling lost’ /Brene Brown/

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Grief is one of those emotions that we don’t want to talk about, says Brown, because we live in a culture where sadness is not acceptable. The only emotion that is accepted when grief arises is anger. We also accept fear, but we tend to put everything else away and try to hide it. Brown goes on to say that no matter how much we’ll try to hide our grief, our body will be leaning toward it as , although we may not like it, grief is needed. This is the price we pay for loving…

It really hit home. I admitted that I’d not allowed myself to grieve for a long time. And when I opened myself up for that grief, shame and guilt arrived too… My natural (?) response would be trying to find something positive to focus on, or minimise the feeling, or ‘hearing voices’ from the past who would tell me to ‘get over it’ or ‘stop being a victim’, or trying to find a solution, or bypass it and force myself to behave like I felt stronger than I actually was… It wasn’t easy, but I surrender. And I grieved. For people who aren’t in my life anymore. For feelings I don’t feel anymore. For a person I wanted to become, but I didn’t. For failed strategies. For whatever I needed to grieve. At the end I wasn’t miraculously feeling elated or happy (?), but I wasn’t feeling unhappy. I felt calm, light and connected.

Grief is a process. It will continue. But I hope that I’ll manage to just surrender to it, without embracing shame and guilt at the same time, and let it do its  healing job. And I’ll continue practising surrendering. It’s a process too, which for me can sometimes be very challenging. But I hope that that feeling of lightness, calmness and peace will be my reminder what I can experience when I surrender.

 

 

Enough is enough.

 

” (…) when we work from a place, I believe, that says, “I’m enough”…then we stop screaming and start listening, we’re kinder and gentler to the people around us, and we’re kinder and gentler to ourselves.” /Brene Brown/

 

In the last several months, I’ve been going through some kind of transformation. I don’t know exactly what it is and I don’t care really as the most important thing for me now is that I love it and I feel it’s been an extremely powerful and positive experience for me. Despite experiencing some pain and emotional discomfort. But I call it a ‘ growing pain’ and I accept it. I’ve written several pages of what’s been going on for me and wrote down what has been popping into my mind, or heart rather, during my meditations and morning pages . This is a compilation of a couple of powerful ‘revelations’ I’ve experienced in recent months.

It wasn’t an accident that I started this post with a quote from Brene Brown’s famous TED Talk ‘The power of vulnerability’.  It’s one of these talks I come back to again and again and again…. And there’s always something new that I notice or something different that resonates with me at any given time. Brene Brown brought up the issue of being ‘enough’, something, that according to her decades of research, has been a problem for lots of people. Including me. ‘Being enough’ doesn’t always stare in our faces- on contrary- it creeps up unnoticed and settles in the deepest depths of our hearts and souls. No one can easily spot it. No one can easily remove it. It’s something that becomes a part of us. So little, yet powerful enough to often dictate how we feel, behave, speak, think, live…. For a very long time I believed that I’m not enough either. And when I made this discovery I was pleased as at least ‘I could do something about it’, right? So my logical mind decided to ‘sort everything out’, no problem. First step, I need to acknowledge that there’s no way I can attract ‘good things’ in my life or a life partner if I’m not enough. So no point to look for those, right? Acknowledgement wasn’t enough, now I need to take step two and focus on ‘making myself a better person’ first. And I’ve been doing just that- for years now: meditating, mindfulness, reading, listening to talks, talking to people, challenging myself, being happy at work, trying to be happy in life etc. All good, all coming truly from my heart. And….despite tonnes and tonnes of fantastic things that have happened to me over the recent years and groups of phenomenal people I’ve met, I still haven’t felt particularly ‘enough’. So I gave up, just dropped it… What’s the point in trying? And then as I was doing my morning pages few months ago this came up: ‘Maybe I’m already whole?Maybe I’m already enough ? Maybe I don’t need to imagine I need more to be able to couple, to attract a partner, to build a solid relationship? I may not be perfect, but I’m enough ! And a big smile appeared on my face 😀 ‘. I suddenly believed myself and in myself . Whatever was coming to life for me that morning was the truth I was looking for for years. I’ve finally accepted it. Brene Brown says that people who love us they don’t love us despite our imperfections, but because of them. And I believe her too.

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Another of my profound moments happened a couple of months ago, also during my morning pages exercise. I’ve been listening to different Buddhist talks as well as TED talks for years and then I added listening to some podcasts on On Being . One of the most common themes/subjects that I’ve come across was the subject of love. I’m not necessarily talking about romantic love or love that people may feel towards their family or friends, but Love as a concept, as Oneness, ubiquitous quality. I, hmm, loved the idea and blah blah blah, but I don’t think I ever really ‘got it’. And I’m not claiming I totally get it now. However, there was a certain shift happening for me that one morning… It really hit me how much I tend to protect myself, but…. there’s no one to protect really. I’m beyond my body and mind. I expand beyond. I’ve just not connected with this properly yet. If I’m Love, does Love really need to be protected? If I’m not this body or this mind, if I don’t inherently exist, do I need protection? ‘I’ (=ego) does. ‘I’ (=Love) does not. But I’m not sure yet…. Can anyone with a Buddhist knowledge or background help me with this please ? As bonkers as it might have sounded to you, it made sense to me. It resonated and moved from the concept level into my reality: I’ve started shedding layers and layers of unnecessary protection. I’ve started taking more risks, opening my heart more and letting myself be more, well, vulnerable. I’ve started doing more of , what Brene Brown calls, ‘being really seen’, getting more in touch with my Authentic Self. And because now I truly believe I AM ENOUGH, it’s not so scary anymore. And even when I come across those scary moments, I’m still able to find some courage to plough through them and just do my best. I don’t need to do it perfectly or be right all the time, but just do my best at that moment. Now I truly believe that I’ve touched something deep and authentic that has been napping somewhere inside of me under those layers of protection. It’s sometimes nerve-racking , raw and , yes, vulnerable, but it feels good 😀

I’m feeling proud of myself. I am Love. I AM ENOUGH.