What do you do when you’re feeling ‘blue’? Last Tuesday was an uncomfortable day for me. Physically and emotionally I felt spent. I was reintegrating into life at home in Columbus after a whirlwind of a week in Toronto, and at the same time preparing for the final session of my new program – Relationship Treasures Hidden in Plain Sight. I felt like I couldn’t settle and focus on anything, and here I was 4:30 on a grey December afternoon with darkness already setting in – ugh!
I sat on the sofa w
ith Bruce and shared the heaviness I was feeling throughout my whole being. And then almost mid-sentence I remembered and said to Bruce “I love it that right here now, when the days are at their shortest and winter is settling in that soon we’ll be at the solstice and even though it’ll be winter, the days will be getting longer – we’ll have more and more light!”
That was the moment of shift for me. As soon as I re-membered – felt again in my body – the power of light, the heaviness in me lifted and next steps became immediately clear. Rather than sitting in a puddle of heavy energy, anxious about having to wade through what felt like mud to complete my preparation, I got up and brought out the box of decorations including our Moravian Star light.
With delight we decorated our home, allowing love and life to flow through us as we added beauty to our environment – light, candles, sounds – aahhh! Those symbols are SO powerful for us.
What if we could remember that – really have that knowing deep in our bodies – about ourselves and each other?! What if when we’re feeling ‘blue’, or confused, or scared, or happy, or angry – whatever our experience – we were able to notice and accept our experience for what it is? What if instead of judging ourselves or how we were feeling, we got curious about how best to nurture ourselves in the space (or phase) we were in?
How would our lives be different if we really knew that our potential for fullness was always there – even when we experience periods where we can’t see or feel it? Doing so wouldn’t necessarily make things any more comfortable in the moment, but it would (at least it does for me!) allow us to hold ourselves more gently and easily in that less comfortable space.
AND, remembering the notion of life unfolding in cycles also helps us loosen our grasp when experiences are ending – even ones that are delightful. When we can open our perspective and trust in the unfolding, we’ll be more likely to allow ourselves our natural phase or period of waning or grieving, equally aware that embedded in every experience of fullness is the certainty of loss or ending, and in every loss or ending are the seeds of new possibility.
By the way, after the evening of delight in decorating, my preparation for that last Relationship Treasures session unfolded effortlessly next day!