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Hello all!
Another month has come and gone. It is the first Sunday of November, so the time has come for our monthly ask and answer segment! Thank you, everyone, for your questions. It is so comforting to see how many of you are asking such deep and meaningful questions in your life. These inquiries are essential, and if I don’t answer them today, you eventually will hear your own voice of guidance. It’s just a matter of time.
I’m finding many of your questions, can be answered in the same way. With this considered, I’m going to try something different next month. I’m playing with the idea of a guided meditation- a monthly ‘heart study’. It may be more useful for us to sit, and aquaint ourself with our hearts. But for now, here are some of this months questions, with my insight:
I “sit” with sad, fear, anger, but I want more peaceful moments. I’m finding these negative feelings are hanging around too much after some major life events in the last few years. I understand that gratefulness and joy go together, but I want to make it more of a habit to lean that way…to automatically feel peace first instead of sadness. How?
First, I want to acknowledge your sitting with your sadness, fear, and anger. I hope you know how hard that very thing is, and to give yourself some love for arriving to tend to your moving stream of emotions. It is a skill many never learn. You are awake to these places in you, and that is no small feat. I remember talking to someone very dear to me about his process of becoming more conscious. He was under the impression that things would get easier, not more and more challenging. There is an expectation in each of us that we will automatically bypass the myriad of emotions we feel. We begin spiritual practice with that innocent hope that we will achieve salvation from these things, and perhaps, one day when we will, but I can’t speak to that happening, for that has not been my experience.
When we have tumultuous years, we can expect wild feelings. We can expect persistent tension and discomfort. The same is so for good moments. Joy and success can lead us to meet our insecurities and perceived shortcomings. We may feel joy in soaring high but also meet our fears of losing it all or failing. There is no moment without a polarity. Our perception of life should incorporate this truth. It would save us a lot of unnecessary suffering.
I have endured years of sitting with many faces of my sadness and fear, so much time in fact, that these percieved as negative feelings have begun to teach me a deep love and appreciation for even these hard places (insert eye-roll if you need, but it’s true!)