My heart could be heavy today. I could lament the ending of a relationship. I may yet do that as the day wears on. This morning, I've been focusing on my morning coffee and filling out paper work for personal business, tasks I've been ignoring until today. I was giving myself some left brain tasks to do, so that I wouldn't slip into the emotions of a break up. I don't even know if it is a break up. All I know is that my dear Toby is in another state, and when I'll see him again is unknown.
Right now, I'm living in acceptance of his absence. It is a process, of course, like following a windy road. There are many blind turns. Acceptance is about opening one's heart to the truth of one's own reality. I have been able to do that in small increments. That is the process. It is taking bite size pieces of my reality and swallowing them one chunk at a time. That statement may sound like days on end of having to suck up to bad feelings and situations. I believe, however, that if I'm as honest as I can be in each moment, whether I share it with another person or know it in my heart and my gut, that my Soul expands around me and I know I'm a. not in charge of the big picture and b. that I'm better off not being in charge of the big picture.
This morning, I pulled the Acceptance card from the Daily Guidance from Your Angels Oracle Cards by Doreen Virtue, Ph.D. This card is about seeing myself and others "through the eyes of the angels." At first, I can't begin to imagine how to do that. Then she mentions unconditional love and acceptance. She mentions that this card encourages us to replace negative thoughts and judgement with positive thoughts for their health and well being. She writes that when practicing this, we are building self-esteem and harmony in relationships.
Ahh...I can begin to see how to do that because I am. To think positively -- or to hold loving thoughts rather than judgement for myself and others, is how I am building self-esteem. And from my own experience, the only way I know to have room for a positive thought is to be in acceptance. To accept that the universe is handling it. To accept that I don't need to force a situation to turn out in a way that is acceptable to me. That I can say, "I don't know what is best," while holding my palms open with wonder.
I can not get what I want and not be afraid that I am forgotten or alone. I can think of my Toby in another state being exactly where he needs to be in this moment, walking the path he is meant to walk, supported by the universe that governs his precious life while I am also walking the path I am meant to walk, supported by the universe that governs my precious life. And instead of feeling like I've lost something I can turn to what's in front of me that needs my attention.
I can be free of worry and focus instead on what the universe wants from me right in this moment. And if I want to cry, I can do that, too. But I will not be crying out of fear or pity. I will be crying to release my hold on what was and be with the truth of what is. With acceptance, I have great esteem because I can act in a way that matches the universe's intention for me, which is much more powerful than me acting alone.
Copyright by Rachel Drews, 2012. All rights reserved. Any excerpts reproduced from this article should include links to the original.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
Fear lives in the heart
I've had two dreams in the past few years where I felt unconditional love to such an extent in the dream, I thought my heart would explode. The feelings of being loved were so big that it hurt. In both dreams I cried and cried as if I were grieving, but I wasn't. I was feeling love.
In the first dream, an old matronly woman, like a Grandmother even though I can't say she was, gave me her house. She did it matter-of-factly and without words. The gesture was immense and symbolic (of course). She was giving me a house for no special reason. She was not giving it to me because I had done anything to earn it. She was giving it to me freely, without attachment, as an expression of unconditional love. In the dream, I dropped to her feet, wrapped my arms around them while sobbing knowing fully the meaning of what she was doing. She was loving me unconditionally. I remember that I didn't feel excitement as if I'd gotten something I always wanted, like a shiny new BMW. It was different, and it rocked the core of my being, pardon the cliched expression.
I since have had a second dream with the same message, and my feeling reaction was the same. The feeling of being unconditionally loved was so big, it felt as though my body could not handle it.
Recently, I have been faced with a fear that is most assuredly tied to my past and is integral to the nature of how I respond to my environment. It is how I perceive myself in relation to others and how I seek to maintain an illusion of balance and safety. This is an impossibility, of course, because I cannot manage other people's feelings or reactions to me. Oh how I try. My fear is that someone will get angry at me, and I will have to feel their anger, confront and respond to it.
A common piece of advice thrown my way is, "Don't take things so personally." I say, good for you for having "thick skin" or be so porous that people's anger moves right through and doesn't affect you. I can't seem to "out think" that fear in me that which right out hurts. I don't deflect anger well, nor am I able to process it in such a way as to create objectivity around it. For me, it comes in through the person's eyes to mine as I read their body language. I absorb their frustrations and any irrational feelings and thoughts. I take them into who I am.
What makes it worse for me, is that in moments like that, I'm so filled with fear that even if I disagree, I will not say anything for fear of making them more angry. I shut down and hold in my feelings and responses. I pretend to not exist as a way of protecting myself from the pain and fear I experience when a person is angry or disappointed. I feel I cannot take it. I don't want to take it. I don't want to feel the anger.
This has become my work experience. I'm in a position where I have to coordinate with people who have differing priorities and agendas and big personalities with big (yet fragile) ego's in order to accomplish daily tasks. It has become exhausting. I've tried different methods for managing my feelings and theirs. I've tried going head on with those that I feel are manipulative and taking advantage of others or the system. I've tried appeasing those same people with friendliness and bonding techniques. I've tried being indifferent. I've tried letting go completely to such an extent that I have lost all motivation to improve the circumstances of where I'm at.
I've made it about me. I've blamed everyone else. I've felt hopeless and abandoned. I've complained endlessly. I've committed myself more to my work. I've tried to give up. I've felt trapped. I've wanted to quit.
My HEART has been so filled with FEAR that I've felt it is impossible to withstand.
In talking with others whom I trust and who champion me to acknowledge my bigness and powerfulness (this is not in context of my ego), have repeatedly told me to step into the fear. Rather than look for the exits literally by quitting my job or figuratively by managing my personality so that I avoid conflict or hide altogether, these wise folks have told me that where I am is of perfect design for my current learning lesson. They have said that when I step into the center of the circle where my fear lives, I will have the experience of who I am really, which is of equal strength and love.
Despite their words and the look in their eyes that contains a deep love and knowingness of me beyond that which I can see or have ever experienced, my heart has continued to be filled with a fear that I've felt nearly impossible to withstand. Fuck you, I want to shout at them and at the Universe that perfectly designed my life so I have to feel the fear that feels impossible to hold in my body, much less my heart.
But because my life has been so intricately designed for me to learn the very lessons my Soul has been incarnated to learn, I have the people in my life to cheer for me, to comfort me and to hold me in a space of understanding and generosity when all I want is out. Because of the intricate design, my attention sees the symbolic nature of my learning, and my awareness catches sight of a free magazine called LAPIS on the sidewalk with an article titled, "Freeing the Soul from Fear: Artistic Living," by Robert Sardello. When all things seem impossible, I know to read the article which talks about when "...our encounters with fear go from being a burden to becoming a means through which we make the world holy." The article resonates with me and my experience and all the words that my wise friends have bestowed upon me time and time again.
In addition to reading the article, I've had several outlying conversations or mentions of Metta Practice. I have a Metta Practice meditation on my iPod. Last night, I knew that I needed to listen to it. Part of the Metta meditation is to experience love for some Being that is easy, to experience it for yourself, and then to do it for someone you're having difficulties with. The woman speaking in the meditation begins by asking you to bring your awareness to your heart and gives direction about expanding it. My heart was filled with so much pain last night that it seemed impossible to imagine love, when that is what the mediation was asking me to do.
But the article that I mentioned above talked about "becoming aware of the tremendous power of fear in the world, living more in region of the heart" as well as "shift[ing] our imagination even slightly" in order to "[s]trengthen our competence of the soul..." As I was listening to the meditation and feeling the fear in my heart with great awareness, while wondering if I could imagine the fear as love, I remembered my dreams of unconditional love. I remembered how big the love was and how I had felt it in my heart so much that my heart seemed to nearly break.
It was then that the awareness that the feelings in my heart of fear and unconditional love felt the same to me that I knew that they weren't one or the other but both. And that where there is great fear, there is great love. At that awareness, the hurt in my heart ceased gradually. I realized that my fear is not telling me that I have been abandoned by the Universe to suffer endlessly, but instead it is an indication that when I move towards it and feel it wholly, I can be assured of the unconditional love that is inherent in the power of my Soul, my Spirit. With that awareness, my fears do become less of a burden and like Sardello writes, "a means through which I make [my] world holy."
Sardello, Robert. "Freeing the Soul from Fear: Artistic Living." LAPIS, New York Open Center, Inc. Spring, 1999.
Copyright by Rachel Drews, 2012. All rights reserved. Any excerpts reproduced from this article should include links to the original.
In the first dream, an old matronly woman, like a Grandmother even though I can't say she was, gave me her house. She did it matter-of-factly and without words. The gesture was immense and symbolic (of course). She was giving me a house for no special reason. She was not giving it to me because I had done anything to earn it. She was giving it to me freely, without attachment, as an expression of unconditional love. In the dream, I dropped to her feet, wrapped my arms around them while sobbing knowing fully the meaning of what she was doing. She was loving me unconditionally. I remember that I didn't feel excitement as if I'd gotten something I always wanted, like a shiny new BMW. It was different, and it rocked the core of my being, pardon the cliched expression.
I since have had a second dream with the same message, and my feeling reaction was the same. The feeling of being unconditionally loved was so big, it felt as though my body could not handle it.
Recently, I have been faced with a fear that is most assuredly tied to my past and is integral to the nature of how I respond to my environment. It is how I perceive myself in relation to others and how I seek to maintain an illusion of balance and safety. This is an impossibility, of course, because I cannot manage other people's feelings or reactions to me. Oh how I try. My fear is that someone will get angry at me, and I will have to feel their anger, confront and respond to it.
A common piece of advice thrown my way is, "Don't take things so personally." I say, good for you for having "thick skin" or be so porous that people's anger moves right through and doesn't affect you. I can't seem to "out think" that fear in me that which right out hurts. I don't deflect anger well, nor am I able to process it in such a way as to create objectivity around it. For me, it comes in through the person's eyes to mine as I read their body language. I absorb their frustrations and any irrational feelings and thoughts. I take them into who I am.
What makes it worse for me, is that in moments like that, I'm so filled with fear that even if I disagree, I will not say anything for fear of making them more angry. I shut down and hold in my feelings and responses. I pretend to not exist as a way of protecting myself from the pain and fear I experience when a person is angry or disappointed. I feel I cannot take it. I don't want to take it. I don't want to feel the anger.
This has become my work experience. I'm in a position where I have to coordinate with people who have differing priorities and agendas and big personalities with big (yet fragile) ego's in order to accomplish daily tasks. It has become exhausting. I've tried different methods for managing my feelings and theirs. I've tried going head on with those that I feel are manipulative and taking advantage of others or the system. I've tried appeasing those same people with friendliness and bonding techniques. I've tried being indifferent. I've tried letting go completely to such an extent that I have lost all motivation to improve the circumstances of where I'm at.
I've made it about me. I've blamed everyone else. I've felt hopeless and abandoned. I've complained endlessly. I've committed myself more to my work. I've tried to give up. I've felt trapped. I've wanted to quit.
My HEART has been so filled with FEAR that I've felt it is impossible to withstand.
In talking with others whom I trust and who champion me to acknowledge my bigness and powerfulness (this is not in context of my ego), have repeatedly told me to step into the fear. Rather than look for the exits literally by quitting my job or figuratively by managing my personality so that I avoid conflict or hide altogether, these wise folks have told me that where I am is of perfect design for my current learning lesson. They have said that when I step into the center of the circle where my fear lives, I will have the experience of who I am really, which is of equal strength and love.
Despite their words and the look in their eyes that contains a deep love and knowingness of me beyond that which I can see or have ever experienced, my heart has continued to be filled with a fear that I've felt nearly impossible to withstand. Fuck you, I want to shout at them and at the Universe that perfectly designed my life so I have to feel the fear that feels impossible to hold in my body, much less my heart.
But because my life has been so intricately designed for me to learn the very lessons my Soul has been incarnated to learn, I have the people in my life to cheer for me, to comfort me and to hold me in a space of understanding and generosity when all I want is out. Because of the intricate design, my attention sees the symbolic nature of my learning, and my awareness catches sight of a free magazine called LAPIS on the sidewalk with an article titled, "Freeing the Soul from Fear: Artistic Living," by Robert Sardello. When all things seem impossible, I know to read the article which talks about when "...our encounters with fear go from being a burden to becoming a means through which we make the world holy." The article resonates with me and my experience and all the words that my wise friends have bestowed upon me time and time again.
In addition to reading the article, I've had several outlying conversations or mentions of Metta Practice. I have a Metta Practice meditation on my iPod. Last night, I knew that I needed to listen to it. Part of the Metta meditation is to experience love for some Being that is easy, to experience it for yourself, and then to do it for someone you're having difficulties with. The woman speaking in the meditation begins by asking you to bring your awareness to your heart and gives direction about expanding it. My heart was filled with so much pain last night that it seemed impossible to imagine love, when that is what the mediation was asking me to do.
But the article that I mentioned above talked about "becoming aware of the tremendous power of fear in the world, living more in region of the heart" as well as "shift[ing] our imagination even slightly" in order to "[s]trengthen our competence of the soul..." As I was listening to the meditation and feeling the fear in my heart with great awareness, while wondering if I could imagine the fear as love, I remembered my dreams of unconditional love. I remembered how big the love was and how I had felt it in my heart so much that my heart seemed to nearly break.
It was then that the awareness that the feelings in my heart of fear and unconditional love felt the same to me that I knew that they weren't one or the other but both. And that where there is great fear, there is great love. At that awareness, the hurt in my heart ceased gradually. I realized that my fear is not telling me that I have been abandoned by the Universe to suffer endlessly, but instead it is an indication that when I move towards it and feel it wholly, I can be assured of the unconditional love that is inherent in the power of my Soul, my Spirit. With that awareness, my fears do become less of a burden and like Sardello writes, "a means through which I make [my] world holy."
Sardello, Robert. "Freeing the Soul from Fear: Artistic Living." LAPIS, New York Open Center, Inc. Spring, 1999.
Copyright by Rachel Drews, 2012. All rights reserved. Any excerpts reproduced from this article should include links to the original.
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