Thankfully, the crying does not last forever. (See previous post) For two days I was unable to keep on keeping on. I gave myself the room to be with how I was feeling and the sad emotions that were coming up. And an amazing thing happened. On the third day the cloud started to lift, my eyes started to dry and my mind was more at ease. I was looking at a different world, even though nothing outside of me had changed. I began to sense a new clarity from a grounded place inside of me. I really experienced an ending…and had not just rushed through it. I roiled around in it, thought about it, remembered the joys and the challenges…and most essentially, I released my grasp on all of it. Releasing it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate or cherish it. It means that I do exactly this without tormenting myself about what it should have been or might have been or that I no longer have it. I am able to lean in to life…fully…because I am not tethered to my past.
I have also not created a story of failure…of poor me and why me and woe is me. The failure story is a perfect way to stay tethered to the past…and I am not having it! Hey, it’s my story…and I want it to be the best story. I want all of my life experiences to wake me up, to open new possibilities, to urge me to go deeper and to live with great expectation…even the painful experiences, the ones that include crying.
I still say…cry on my friends. And after the crying you might notice an opening…an opening in your heart…a calling, really, that says “Lean in, stay close to your heart, there is more life to be lived.”
With tenderness
Paula
