Emotions.

I read something about emotions today that I wanted to tease out and share with all of you, as I think that it can act as a powerful learning and encouragement for us. Sometimes we just want to shut down and completely numb ourselves to the aching, anger, discomfort, we experience in life. We all have our own ways of anesthetizing ourselves and taking the edge off: alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, staying busy, sex, work, planning, constant change, perfectionism, and so forth. When you are decentered, or just not living wholeheartedly, gut reaction is to run away from the uncomfortable emotions and find a way to act like they don't exist. Here's the interesting thing about that:

"We cannot selectively numb emotions. When we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions"

 Let that marinade. You can't pick that you will take a glob of joy, a sprinkle of inspiration, a dash of excitement, and ZERO pain. When you are numbed, you are unable to feel anything. Instead of running away from the trying emotions, we must learn to lean into the discomfort. We must stay aware and build resilience so that we can feel the love and joy just as intensely as the pain. 


We all, in big or small ways, have ways of taking the edge off. Those who are developed and committed to living wholeheartedly recognize their own tactics and try to get back to accepting whatever it is they are feeling and exploring that sensation. On the other hand, people who constantly and compulsively numb to the point of sacrificing their worthiness, boundaries, authenticity, and connection to the Universe - that is called addiction. 

"When we numb the dark, we numb the light." 

That's no way to live. Being open to feeling - to accepting the dark and light emotions as they come - that is called vulnerability. That is what I want. Being vulnerable is always what feels the best to me. It allows me to discover and connect with energies (people, places) that glow and ignite my light within. If I were to always counter my struggle for self-acceptance with exhausting perfectionistic tendencies or constantly staying busy, I would run myself into the ground and be 100% incapable of connecting to those light sources to I value being so drawn to and inspired by. I realize now that I lived a good portion of the last couple years doing exactly those things, wondering why I couldn't find that deep sense of inner peace and happiness I longed for. Instead, I must strengthen my ability to surrender those deflectors and maintain a pulse on my inner reality. It's okay to hurt and feel pain. It only means as much as we let it. It will pass... it always does. But you have to want it to, and that requires keeping the doorstop wedged in the passage way to our hearts. 

LOVE > FEAR

True Love.

Recently, a soul mate has been brought back into my life by the good graces of the Universe, and I felt inspired to share my thoughts on true love. My boyfriend has taught (and continues to teach) me a lot about love, and the journey that is our relationship unveils something to me every day about what it means to love someone (whether that someone is yourself or another being).

The biggest lesson I have learned thus far in my life (I have shared with you recently):

You can only love others as much as you love yourself.

I can't stress how true this statement is. And it's interconnectedness with our happiness, acceptance, and growth is unreal. I had no idea just how limited I was in my ability to love and accept others in my life until I saw how critical I was of myself. I was never good enough, and no one else in my life was either. The more I criticized my body, my habits, my inhibitions... the more I saw the need to pick others apart. When we feel badly about ourselves, it drastically effects how we treat and respond to others in our life. Pent up self-resentment makes us judge and condemn others. There is a direct correlation between love for self and capacity to have uninhibited, totally vulnerable love for others. As soon as I hit a peak within my own self-acceptance, everyone else in my life immediately became this new kind of beautiful perfection. Why? Because I could accept and EMBRACE them for exactly who and what they are. Who am I to judge what they choose to say, eat, do with their time or who they decide to befriend, marry, work with? Once you can let go of all the things you want to criticize, all of the beauty begins to surface... and things that you were unable to see before (because the wall of judgement was clouding your view) spring to life! Suddenly "that" friend isn't neglectful of me, "that" family member isn't a burden, "that" coworker isn't incompetent, "that" acquaintance isn't annoying. They all emerge as wonderful in their own unique way. Sounds incredible right? It's not an easy perspective to attain, especially for someone like myself who would rather work on "fixing" someone else before I ever consider looking within my own heart and mind instead. The work must start (and continue) within ourselves before this awe-inspiring acceptance of others can really come to fruition.

So, then. What is true love? Think about this in terms of having true love for yourself, as well as the love you feel for others.

• It is acceptance. It does not judge or want to change something for selfish reasons
• Instead of judge, it wants to learn and understand
• It inspires. It teaches to promote growth and new levels of understanding
• It is ever-burning. It never dies, even when stress or challenges threaten to douse it
• It is passionate. It is excited and engrossed
• It is vulnerable. It is open and willing to accept life as it comes
• It is caring. It is having empathy and wanting to get on a mutual level of feeling
• It is balanced. It is magically suspended by the poles that vie for its energy
• It is encouraging. It wants happiness and success for others
• It is giving. It is compassionate and generous with its possessions (time, emotions, understanding, etc.)
• It is patient. It doesn't hasten to figure things out or make rash decisions
• .... I could go on and on.

What is true love to you? How do you define it? What is true love NOT?

I would love to hear your thoughts and any awakenings you have had about love. We can all learn so much from each other through this kind of sharing!

Persistence.

“If you’re tired of starting over, stop giving up.” 

What a powerful quote. I definitely need to meditate on this today, as I've been feeling "too nervous" to start or follow through with projects. That's usually a result of me being overwhelmed and running away from doing too much when I have a minute to catch some air. (I'm even "running away" right now as I blog, but I find this necessary and remedial!) In times of doubt or fear, I see that I stray away from what I need to do. I distract my thoughts and let procrastination (cleaning, reading, Pinterest) replace my accountability. Then when I get so far from feeling balanced and on track that I need to start over, I layer on thick, nasty resentment. It's a terrible cycle. "I'm tired of starting over this car insurance provider research." "I'm tired of starting over in my yoga practice." "I'm tired of starting over in my relationships." Well, then stop giving up! My laziness stems from fear to start. But if I never stop working through the tough projects and making little dents whenever I can, then the goal will never feel too out of reach. 

It's quite the balancing act to find that perfect medium between getting things done and stressing yourself with too-full a plate. The best thing to do is to be realistic. Map out feasible timelines for yourself that give you enough bandwidth to actually get things done. I need to get rid of my current list-making tactic, because each week I have a new list, and some items fall off (I get nervous and exclude them from my list after it becomes a seemingly idle task) or I lose sight of the long term goals while focusing on the more pressing, but smaller to-do items. I may think "Heck yeah! Crossed 10 things off my list!" and go into veg-out mode. But when those 10 things consist of grocery shopping, going to the pharmacy, buying cat food, getting gas, and taking out the trash, I kid myself thinking that I have been super productive in the greater sense of what I need to get done. Of course, I did need to do those little things. But I need to also budget in the bigger ticket items (planning summer travel, learning about becoming a home owner, switching my car insurance provider... oops, I'm using my blog as a list!).  

Any suggestions about HOW to keep those bigger projects on the radar in the midst of the piddly little errands?


Lots of love to you today and always! 

New favorite artist... Birdy. Such a talented young lady. I've been listening to her album all day. This particular song seemed to fit well with my post today. 

Trust.

Trust: firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.

Are you able to trust yourself? Do you trust others easily? Do you trust that everything that happens in this world is already written in the stars? Can you trust that the greater balance of the Universe is more important than the list of reasons we give to not trust in its abilities?


Guess who has it ALL figured out? The Universe. 

Guess who DOESN'T have to even try to figure any of it out: You. 


Trust is huge. It's arguably one of the most vital component in any relationship (with yourself, with others, and with the Universe). I have written a lot about being vulnerable and being accepting... you need to be strong in both of these areas to really be able to trust. To place your confidence in something or someone, you have to fully embrace them and be open to what they have to give you (the "good" and the "bad"). I always feel the need to put those binaries in parentheses. I don't like seeing things as black and white, and I especially don't like to point out occurrences in our lives as "bad" ones - because each and every one serve the beautiful purpose of informing our journey. Even if we get hurt in the process, having trust feels so much nicer than keeping a wall up and being on-guard for an attack that may never come. Trust means taking what comes and surrendering our own ideas of how we thought things might have been.


Trust may actually be synonymous with acceptance, now that I start teasing out the meaning and how to establish it. Also, can you have one without the other? I don't think so. How can you accept someone or something if you can't trust that X, Y, or Z is that way for a reason? For me, it's much easier to think of it at the macro-level of the Universe than on the individual person level. For example, it's easy for me to conjure up an instance where I would accept someone for who they are, but not trust them. However, even that example is a flawed one. The trust-acceptance relationship is actually the same on the macro and micro levels. Acceptance requires letting go of expectations, and withholding trust means that you have some kind of expectation that your trust will be abused (thus my example fails).


I asked a few of my close friends why they thought trust was important. Here are some of the responses I got...

"Without trust, you can't have love. Lack of trust leads to resentment, bitterness, suspicion, jealousy, and all of those negative feelings that no one enjoys. Trust is a foundation of love and relationships. And to me, those relationships are important. Lying used to come easy to me until I realized that none of my friends or family relied on me. Practicing trust leads to purity. The people who are always honest and keep themselves straight are always the happiest and most wholesome, and they attract people because it is so rare. Trust strengthens the bonds of love to a degree that is unbreakable." 

"Trust is important because it allows us the opportunity to release our control. And thus teaches us how strong we really are. It also conserves energy from the amount it takes to try to contain, possess, ultra-examine, protect, disprove, or make up stories about. And is therefore a more fluid and light use of one's energy." 

"Trust even that which is untrustworthy. Love that which is not worth loving. That's what the Universe does."

Each of these responses inspired me in a different way. Trust truly is necessary for wholehearted loving and living. Trust is also vital for us to be 100% vulnerable to what the world has to offer us. The only barrier to trust is our own resistance.