![]() ![]() ![]() It’s perilous and beautiful, organized chaos. ![]() I thought of a Rube Goldberg machine- you know, where someone’s trying to make toast or something- you put a marble in a tube and it goes through an elaborate, unlikely and perilous obstacle course, cascades set in motion other cascades as the lone marble makes its way to its destination and finally: Toast! I had an odd thought about crying that came to me while working on this post. I think that captures the broad sentiment. To shorthand it: I heard of a summer camp that gives kids candy if they don’t cry when talking to their parents in their weekly calls. But maybe if we changed our relationship with crying, it would be easier to do when we need to.Ĭrying is our native tongue, it’s how we express ourselves when we first enter this world. The body gets used to putting on the brakes to hold back tears, so when we finally have a minute to ourselves, it’s not like we’re going to burst into tears right then and there. Crying is the cure.īut sometimes it’s hard to do. That is how you get the greatest release.” Thinking it the “right” answer she said- “not very much.” To her surprise, the monk responded: “No, no you must cry your heart out. In one of her meetings with the monk, he asked her if she was crying about her friend in her meditation. A friend of hers had just passed away and she was trying hard to not be “attached” to grieving by crying too much and missing what she was supposed to be learning during the monk’s stay. Dan Gottlieb, “buried feelings are buried alive,” they don’t just go away, but how do we access them?Įnough background-here’s the story that moved me to write this post.Īt a recent online event, Sharon Salzberg, the beloved Buddhist meditation teacher who brought lovingkindness meditation practice to the western world, told a story about her early days inviting a Buddhist monk to her then newly founded meditation center in Barre, Massachusetts. As a psychologist, I know we need to connect with those emotions, because, in the words of my dear friend, Dr. How paradoxical, that it can be so hard to simply open to our emotions just under the surface! Like looking at them through a window-they are right there, yet out of reach. Honestly, don’t you just want to cry sometimes? We can’t be in a constant state of gratitude for all the gifts we do have amidst the losses and strains. Just because we can do all this, and maybe we’re even becoming increasingly better at responding flexibly to the constant shape-shifting of whatever this moment calls for, it doesn’t mean it’s somehow natural for us. Day.īut truth-telling here: It’s not easy. ![]() My kindred over-functioning people, it’s not that we are dysfunctional or shut down by choice. Add to that… fear, stress, exhaustion, grief, anger, job stress, dishes, laundry, homework. Life! All this likely falls in the category of “love in action” because in the end, why else do we do anything, really, except for the sake of love? But the strain of supply and demand mismatches of our own emotional and practical resources as the challenges of the pandemic and this moment in human history rage on are eclipsing what we long to feel-that intense flow of grace when we are replete with love and bolstered with a belief in what is possible. Well, the worry and sadness we might feel reading the news any hour of any day. Or more to the point, when it’s hard to feel connected to the love within, between and around us.Īt a time when we are greatly needing the reassurance and nurturing of love, what we may be feeling instead is an absence, a bracing, the ache of the impenetrability of our hearts and the anguish of things seemingly getting in the way of our feeling love in the unencumbered way we remember from before. If you’re a regular reader here, you are likely not surprised that my thoughts this year went not to the flowers and candy and such but to the other side-the experience of when it’s hard to love. Happy Valentine’s week! Whether celebrating this year feels natural or discordant in this very precarious moment of our history, I think we can all agree: The world and its vulnerable inhabitants could really use the profound comfort of more love right now. ![]()
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