Month: January 2022

There are days just for crying.

Believing that tears mean ‘there’s something wrong with me‘ adds an additional layer of suffering that is unnecessary.

You don’t know why you’re crying.

And you don’t need to know either.

Just cry.

You don’t even need anyone by your side.

Crying alone is in itself what’s needed.

Without someone there to justify or intrude upon the natural flow of tears.

You with yourself crying, mourning, grieving and even more than that.

You’ve been taught by the world that when you cry, that means something is very wrong.

And so crying becomes something you’re trying to hide.

Ashamed of.

Something to keep in. To hold back.

So you can go about business as usual.

But business as usual has gone out the window some time ago.

Business as usual was always a superimposed layer on the tears that want to flow.

Days for crying are beautiful days. Just for you. You by yourself.

Ask those around you to leave you be. To not intrude or impose their relational needs on you. To leave you to cry your heart out. Without trying to come and save you. Or even feel with you. It’s not what you need. It’s a time for you, your tears and your solitude to be honored – bowed down to. Left alone.

Sometimes you just need to cry alone. Totally alone. So you can be honest with your tears. And so that your tears can be honest with you. So that your tears can bless you in your aloneness.

The kind of honesty that comes when you’re by yourself. The kind of let go that comes when there’s no one else around.

Crying days are sacred days that need to be honored.

You can cry your heart out.

You can cry till you can cry no more.

And the mind will try to come up with reasons for why you’re crying.

But it doesn’t matter, does it?

The tears are the fact.

There’s no need to add a layer of understanding on top of it.

What can we understand anyway. Not much.

So be with your tears and honor them. Let them clean you out. Let them take you where you are alone in the solitude of your dark. Without needing to explain or worry or care about anyone else, anything else, anywhere else.

Let your face be an expression of the pain you feel. Don’t try to mold it into an amicable expression to soothe or appease your nearest and dearest. Trying to communicate on some level, “I’m okay, it’s okay, nothing to worry about”.

No, fuck that. You’re not okay. And in your not okay-ness, you’re okay. More than okay. You’re beautiful.

You don’t need to make anyone feel better about themselves by masking your pain. A saccharine smile, or a slight nod or gesture to re-assure them all is well. All is not well. And that’s okay.

Pain is not a mistake. Pain is not a sign that something is wrong. That belief makes an enemy of pain. A shame of pain.

You’re not here to make everyone comfortable. That’s what weighs on you because you believe you need to hide your pain. To take on a role. And you can’t. You don’t have it in you. You no longer have that capacity.

Be in pain. Don’t make an enemy of pain. Let it be on your face. In your eyes. In your relating. The more you try to hide it, the more painful it gets.

And cry. Cry without making the tears wrong. Without holding back. Without putting a time limit on your tears. Without making tomorrow a day for ‘being better’. Because in that, there’s a subtle demand for the tears to come to an end today, sooner rather than later. And in that, a sense of hurry – speed past the tears, rush by the sobbing and the heartbreak. Be a mess today, but business as usual tomorrow.

No. Throw out this old and dusted instructions manual. And be here today crying, sobbing, in pain, in heartbreak, in inconsolable sorrow. Let the pain pierce your bones, your heart, your gut, your skull. Give it permission to totally touch you, unhidden, unashamed, untangled from the belief of wrongness.

Bless you in your pain, in your tears, as it is, as you are without anything needing to change. Amen.

How small that is, with which we wrestle, what wrestles with us, how immense; were we to let ourselves, the way things do, be conquered thus by the great storm,—we would become far-reaching and nameless.What we triumph over is the Small, and the success itself makes us petty. The Eternal and Unexampled will not be bent by us.

Rainer Maria Rilke

There’a a a great undoing at my root. It wrestles me as I wrestle it. Or is it the other way around?

Compassion says, go slow, slower than a snail even. Regress if you must. You don’t really know where you are anyway.

You can’t understand what you can’t understand. You can’t undo what you can’t undo. So what is there to do? What is there to understand?

All you can do is be quiet. And even that you can’t do. You can’t force. You can’t will. You can’t pretend. You can’t hold onto.

So…

I don’t know what to do and that’s okay. Really okay. More than okay.

I am not supposed to know what to do.

I am not supposed to be ‘on top of it’.

When my nervous system is highly activated with anxiety, stress, overwhelm.

When my mind is coming up with a million and one things to fix, do and learn.

When my body is exhausted, stretched to it’s limit, processing a lot of energy.

All I can do is tend to myself. As best I can.

And that doesn’t mean rushing out to do the thing I think I have to do before it’s too late.

And it doesn’t mean adding a layer of ‘failure’ to my experience because it doesn’t feel good.

The hardest thing to ‘do’ sometimes is to stay put despite all the urges to run, rush, fix, figure out, jump over.

And we can be looking to get the answer from anyone.

That desperation. That impulse. That energy.

Doesn’t need to die by ‘sitting with it’ or ‘feeling it’ or ‘understanding it’.

Nothing needs to happen. Nothing needs to change.

Not the mind, not the body, not the nervous system.

Not this, not that, not the other.

It can just be as it is, like it is because it is.

“Slowing down” is not an idea

Not something ‘you’ do

It’s the breaking down of an ancient mechanism

That has it’s grips at the root

Feeding into the brain and the wiring of the nervous system

It’s a complete systemic shutdown of the old

Without the promise of the new

No installation or re-configuration

No guarantee no warranty

Slowing down is not just ‘self-care’

It’s a letting go of all that you know

All that you wanted

All that you dreamt

It’s a deep grieving of everything that could’ve been

Should’ve been would’ve been

There’s a Grumpy Monster that lives inside of me

This monster is always hungry

Always restless

Always looking for something to do

Something to worry about and a problem here too

I’ve got so much on my plate – I just can’t remember it all

I’ve got tons to do and no time – make the call!

There’s a problem here – it needed fixing last year

I’m already far behind – I can’t keep ruining what’s mine!

There’s a list somewhere of all things I have to do

I can’t waste a minute let’s move! – (don’t know where to)

Like a hand on my back and a weight on my chest

Rushing and squirming – never doing my best

This could’ve been better, you dropped the ball on that

It’s alright just keep moving- you’re as dumb as a bat

There’s no hope there’s no time – no solutions anywhere

Crawl into a ball and fall into despair

Don’t breathe, don’t move, you’re on thin ice

You’re fucking it all up and you might wanna check your hair for lice

You’re breathing in mold, you’re spending too much money

You’ve only got one chance to get it right honey

What a joke what a mess – you could do so much better !

If only you could get your act together…

Fumble and fall

Stutter and bawl

You can’t do anything or much at all

Grumpy Monster,

You’ve really got a hold on me

Making life a misery…

When I listen to you, life’s a mess

I’m blind, I’m deaf – I confess

A pause, a hiccup, a breath or two

I come to my senses and break the taboo

Oh Grumpy Monster, I know you’re upset

There’s nothing to do and you can’t stand it

Nothing needs fixing there’s no problem here

You’re out of a job and you can’t seem to bear

Come here, come closer

Let’s get a look at you

You just need some lovin’ like everything too

I feel, I know, I sense your monstrosity

Your restless fear and false grandiosity

You’ve danced, you’ve dabbled, you’ve run amok

You got me to the point where I don’t give a fuck

But enough’s enough and that’s all there is to it

Gratitude, rest and kindness – you’ll be fluent

Come here, come here

No more running – let’s breathe

Let’s bring some sanity to this day please

I’ve burnt your lists and turned off the phone

Got nothing to do – except hear you moan

There’s nowhere to go, I’ve dropped it all

I’m gonna go slow even if I crawl

Let’s sit together get to know each other

Wrestle and fight or try to bite

Won’t matter at all, cuz I’ve hit a wall

It’s okay Grumpy Monster

Let’s swim in deep water

Not knowing what happens

Let’s stop all the barter

It’s not the end of the world

It’s not the end of time

We’re just here that’s all

You’re not even mine

Nothing is wrong

Not even you

All is well and you’re welcome here too

Step into the world of Everything is as it should be

The crud the mold the mess and the could be’s

I was left at school when I was very young

Left wondering where my family had gone

Did they forget me

Did they exist

Was I imagining all this

In the playground I wept while all the kids went home

Picked up by their mom’s and dad’s one by one

Emptier and emptier the playground grew

And darker and darker the evening drew

Run out on the street trying to make my way home

The whole world whizzed by

I was lost and alone

I was lost and alone

Lost and alone

Run back I would to the playground again

Where I sat under a tree and looked around me again

I’d cry and I’d wait with no guarantee

Not knowing if there’d ever be mommy

I wondered why I had such little trust

Was I just making a fuss

She’d pull up her car and hastily rush me in

Not looking to see the tears that have been running

Thirty years on I now understand

They showed me who they are the first time around

There’s an imbalance here that is revealing itself to you and wants to set be straight. Wants to come into balance. Into coherency. Into clarity and truth.

And it’s showing up as this fear. This trauma. The fear is the trauma. The trauma of the terror of feeling unsafe in your own family. Feeling like living your life is an abomination to them.

In the past, the expression of your own autonomy, sovereignty was severely punished. You were punished for speaking your truth, living your truth, for doing whatever it is you needed to do to cope. Punished by those who were meant to be your closest allies, your dearest. And all in the name of family.

And so the fear is a friend. The terror is the body speaking to you. It’s shaking you up. Waking you up. Saying, hello hello, mayday, mayday! We’ve been here before and it was hell. Safety needed. Pay attention here. You’re needed here. In the body.

And the body itself is confused. Because when family are the one’s who are “dangerous” – it’s a mind fuck. Because it’s the most seemingly familiar being seen to be the most foreign. It’s “home” but something know this is not what home is supposed to feel like. It’s all you’ve ever known but what you’ve known is hell on earth. It’s the biological pull to be in the safe arms of family and the intelligence of the trauma pushing you to run be as fast as you can. And this is confusing as hell. For the body and the mind.

So let’s bring real kindness, real gentleness to this fight. This agonizing struggle. The mind fuck of it. The heart wrench of it. The panic of it. The one that wants to run and the one that feels pinned down. Let them both be here.

And really look, what was really happening. What is happening beneath the guise of family. What’s really going on here. Why do I feel so endangered around these people? Am I in danger now? Why does the body feel like it’s being ambushed now? Why is it activating fight or flight? There’s intelligence here that needs a deep listening to.

Is this the ambush of feeling ganged up on… Act this way or else. Do this or else. Stay in line or else. Or else. Everyone’s getting their ducks in a row and you’re in the way. What a problem you are. How rude. How impudent. You think we have time for your childish feelings. Your imagined sovereignty. Your unacceptable behavior.

And you feel it, the more you speak your truth, the more this fear is activated. In this interaction and in that interaction. You speak from truth, you act from truth and it’s not well-received. So something in you wants to run. Feels unsafe. Because in the past you were unable to create that safety for yourself and neither did you have it. Nor did you have an understanding or capabilities to discern what was going on.

And there was a hierarchy that you believed in. The family hierarchy. Mom, Dad, older brother, older sister. I’m the little one. The child. Treated as such. This constellation.

A software update needs to happen internally and is happening. The update of seeing through the guise of the family. Dismantling the hierarchy or having it dismantled for you. Undoing the sense of ambush. Seeing through others wanting you to do their bidding under the guise of them doing your bidding.

The stigma around setting boundaries and living from your truth is what activates the fear of being ganged up on. Because in being the family scapegoat, in being the one who carries the burden of the family’s collective unconsciousness, you’re a problem – for them. And so you need harshness or diplomacy, a tugging or a pulling – you need a strategy in order to be coerced into doing, saying, acting in a way that is ‘beneficial’ to them.

But this is not real ‘benefit’. Real benefit is acting in accordance to your innermost knowing in the moment. And finding the whatever it is you can find to anchor you to the earth, ground and breath. So that you’re not sullied by the attempts at coercion, the stigmatized beliefs around speaking from truth. So that you can hold your own amidst the stormy weathers of the family ambush.

You don’t have to leave. That’s the trauma. It wants to run.

Your true yearning is to be able to hold your own. Stabilize and resource yourself enough so that confusion, manipulation, distortion don’t color your vision.

It helps to rest. To digest. To let whatever is revealing itself, coming in or going out – integrate, land. Use your resources for this. Learn to rest.

Your true nature is quiet dignity. It reveals itself in relaxation. In resting back. In slowing down. In taking your time. In not rushing to do, say, or act.

The trauma wants to tell you what you need and what you don’t need. But you don’t know what you need. And that is a blessing. To think you know what you need is in a way a limitation. A narrowness.

The trauma is for healing and digestion. It’s for integration. It’s not for deciphering needs.

In a way your focus is resourcing the body. Learning what it needs. It’s cues. Providing safety, rest and space for it to unwind. Unravel. For all the seeds that were planted, are planted to rest in nutrient-rich soil. To be watered.

Your focus is to breathe. To breathe deeply. To breathe into. Into the gut. Into the clenches. Into deeper and deeper rest.

To admit your vulnerability, your humanness, your trauma-ness, your wounding, your little child-ness. And to find shade under big trees. Teachers, guides, friends on the path.

There’s nothing wrong with that. There’s no shame in that. It’s not about teacher- student. Lesser than or more than. It’s not about becoming someone who knows things too. It’s not about that. And it’s not about collapsing on the one who knows either.

It’s about the quiet joy of feeling connected to yourself. Of understanding your priorities. Not mentally. But in your spine. In your alignment. In your gut. Your root. Learning to trust yourself. Of not letting your movements inner or outer be dictated by others whims and fancies.

And it’s about being able enough, humble enough, wise enough to be in need of help, ask for help, get help and be gracious enough to be able to receive it. And not know anything of it, above it or below it.

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings.

Rumi

What if nothing meant anything about you.

Would you be trying to do the right thing?

To be the right way?

To prove your worth by being loyal.

Or to “straighten out” your karma by being good.

Or would you be more real.

More fluid. More true.

More available.

More open.

Less prone to leaving yourself for the sake of the other.

No matter who it is.

Regardless of what it looks like.

Or any preconceived ideas of what it’s supposed to be like.

Trying to be ‘good’ ends up in obligation. Strait-jacket-ness.

Feeling trapped. Burdened. Resentful. Over-compensating.

It says, this isn’t what I want to do but what I have to do to prove to you that I’m good, reasonable, sane, lovable.

How you’re feeling is not your fault. How your nervous system is acting doesn’t mean anything about you. It’s not a mistake. Not a wrongdoing on your part. Not a sign of failure.

The narrative of:

If only I had done something differently, I wouldn’t be like this. If I was “normal” then this wouldn’t be happening. Other people don’t experience this. This must mean there’s something wrong with me.

Is a false, self-deprecating conditioned narrative from a culture that demonizes and has great disdain for dark emotion – pretending that this darkness doesn’t exist.

Psychologists call changing what you think about what you feel “cognitive restructuring” or “reframing.” For instance, thinking “I’m weak” when you feel sad or scared can be reframed as “I’m strong and courageous enough to let myself feel sad or scared.” In re-visioning and reframing the power of grief, fear, and despair we come to think about them not as obstacles or enemies but as guides to spiritual transformation. This kind of affirmation is an essential foundation for trusting emotional energy and using it wisely.

Miriam Greenspan, Healing Through Dark Emotions

Tapping into this darkness and being in tune with the delicate tapestry of this emotional underworld means giving space and permission to the hurt little ones within. Their right to be here. The right for the embryonic pre-communication vulnerable ones to move through us, to show their faces.

Their repression into shadow need not be the norm anymore. They can come into the light and feel into their right to exist, their inherent right to be here. And part of that is acknowledging and feeling into their conditioned and believed sense of wrongness and the shame that comes with that. The shame of the dark emotion, the shame of intense vulnerability being labeled as weakness. And the recoiling nature of that shame.

Being in the dark for so long can cause an aversion to the light. So a recoiling can happen, a recoiling of ‘it’s not safe enough out here, let’s go back into the dark’. But great patience is needed here. Great self-compassion. To acknowledge inwardly that it’s no small feat to be in tune with the underworld. To learn to let it move through. To feel the aching vulnerability of a baby who feels totally, utterly and violently overwhelmed by 3D reality is no small thing.

And the facade of ‘normal’ out here in the world – especially in relating with others – is a great trigger point for any vulnerable, scared, hurt parts of us to feel outrageously out of place and recoil. The “normal” surfacey interactions of everyday life can feel even callous for those of us who are courageous enough and willing enough to unearth the underworld of dark emotion and live on the edge of vulnerability, precision and open-heartedness.

The ‘normal’ can feel painful to us. And it’s important to name that and not make that wrong. That ‘normal’ is fucking painful to us and this truth is our new normal. The truth of acknowledging and recognizing the facade of normal for what it is. No matter how convincing it looks.

A facade is a front. It’s not real. It’s aesthetics. It’s reality is lesser than the reality of the underworld of dark emotion. Meaning that it’s unreal. Even though it might not look like it or even feel like it sometimes. But that whole surface level of relating is sitting on top of suppressed dark emotions. And that’s where we learn that darkness is wrong. That’s where we learn, I’m crazy (for feeling this, for seeing this, for sensing this). We learn it and imbibe it by taking in the facade of normal to be realer than the underworld of dark emotions.

Making the darkness right needs to happen first before the darkness can turn into light. Which is ultimately not something we do but an inner alchemy that happens of it’s own accord. We can facilitate this process by making the darkness right; recognizing and acknowledging from our full humanness and full being-ness that the underworld of dark emotions is real. For us. And is not just worthy of our loving attention but more than that if we are to function and relate in a healthy and wholesome way, we must tend to this underworld wholeheartedly. Otherwise it will leak out in ways beyond our control or even awareness.

In making the darkness right, an inner permission slip is given to unearth the hidden, shadowy, latent tendencies of that underworld. Bringing it up to the light to be seen, felt and digested. In the rightness of the darkness, we start to see through the facade of normal functioning and the facade of normal relating. And in seeing through this facade, our ability to function and relate in a more real and grounded way starts to reveal itself to us.

When we are no longer participating in the facade nor believing the facade, our attention can be freed up to turn around from the outward appearances of ‘normality’ to the inward reality of what’s being unearthed. The vulnerability, the fear, the shakiness, the aching become our allies. And a new learning happens where we start to understand and listen to the cues of our inner world. The ways in which it is constantly communicating to us through the body with information we need to pay attention to.

Information like:

This is too much for me right now. I need to set a boundary here. I need to rest now. I don’t feel safe here. My nervous system is overwhelmed. This interaction doesn’t feel true for me. This person is standing too close to me. I need to remove myself from this situation.

Or.

I love this. This feels natural to me. I want to do more of this. This space is safe. I feel nurtured.

Our ability to inwardly listen to these cues is heightened when we can genuinely dis-engage from the facade of normal and see it for what it is. This is like unplugging from a machine of conditioning with a motor so loud – you can hardly hear yourself. Unplugging this machine is a whole dance unto itself of standing your ground. And bringing kindness to the places that wobble. The places that still believe the facade of normal and take it at face value.

The wobbly places are where we carry trauma. Trauma can be as simple as an inner sense of disbelief at how convincing the facade of normal appears to be. All the little things we took for granted to be natural and authentic reveal themselves to be a complete lie, a fabrication, even acting.

This comes as a shock to the system – one in need of full digestion. Because it reveals to us a whole thread of information that has been unconscious to us in the past. That in our innocence and in our conditioning, we were taught to believe the lie and accept it for what it is. And there can be a lot of rage and even despair unearthed within us – just from that one piece.

The energy of the dark emotions brings us information about the self and the world; about the past, present, or future; about the inner and outer worlds and the connections between them. The information we get alerts us to be attentive to something important and guides us to transformational change.

Miriam Greenspan