Look Here Now

Whenever I get offended, when I feel hurt, when I want to withdraw, I understand that this is life (as my meditation teacher Matt Flickstein would say) pointing a red neon arrow saying “Look here now.” Generally, the faster I want to not feel and run, to put my attention outside of myself, the greater the opportunity for turning straw into gold. I’ve learned that If I can stay embodied without separating and putting up walls, and feel into the “offense”, hurt and ensuing ancient pattern of dealing with it, it changes. If I can continue to stay and feel from my center and let each layer reveal itself without trying to understand, change, fix, or get rid of it, it moves through in waves of heat, images, emotions, energetic rumbles and often grief. It’s like a time capsule waiting to be opened and released - old patterns and feelings stuffed away and hidden all come up for a breath. It’s counter-intuitive that by actually going into the pain and deeply feeling it that this is actually the way out. We usually tend to just move around it, by-pass and and keep the pain at bay. (Because that was perhaps the best thing to do when we were younger.) But now that we are in a different place in life, with different skills and power, all of our uncomfortable situations are opportunities for becoming wiser, open-hearted, undefended and free. Next time you are in a difficult situation, consider re-framing what’s going on, stay embodied, feel and open to it as a gift from the universe. More compassion, freedom and joy are what comes after.